It has long been known that Alexander Hamilton was briefly enrolled in a Jewish school in his early years, which were spent on the Caribbean island of Nevis, and that his mother was likely married to a Jewish man. But Andrew Porwancher’s research has led him to the conclusion that Hamilton’s connection to the Jews runs much deeper and influenced his relations with Jews and his attitudes toward religious freedom. In an interview with Arielle Gordon, he explains:

In the 18th century, Christian children were not educated at Jewish schools. [But Hamilton] attended a Jewish school where we know he began a rudimentary study of the Torah in the original Hebrew.

One myth is that Hamilton’s [mother’s first husband]—Johann Michael Levine [often spelled Lavien]—was not Jewish because he does not appear in the Danish records as a Jew. I have gone through . . . thousands of pages of Danish records and found that Jews are almost never identified as Jews in these records. . . . Hamilton’s mother, Rachel Faucette, was born a Gentile. . . . At the time Rachel married Levine, in the Danish Caribbean colony of St. Croix, the convention under Danish marriage law was to ban Jewish-Christian marriages. So ostensibly, if she had converted [to Judaism] prior to the wedding, that would have allowed her to circumvent any sort of legal prohibition to their having an interfaith marriage.

All of Rachel’s nieces and nephews were baptized in St. Croix as infants. We know Levine did not have the son that Rachel bore him baptized. Additionally, Hamilton’s own grandson identified Levine as a Jew. We know that Levine had been involved in business with other Jews at a time when Jews were disproportionately likely to conduct commerce among themselves. . . .

In terms of researching Hamilton’s adult relationships with American Jewry . . . : almost every major figure at Shearith Israel, which was the one synagogue in New York in his day, was represented by Hamilton in court at some point in their life.

I think it is [also] striking that Hamilton was a champion of religious freedom. For instance, Hamilton worked with John Jay to revise the charter for their shared alma mater, Columbia University. One of the changes they made was to open the office of the college presidency to people of all faiths; what is particularly striking about this reform is that other colleges that date back to that era did not make comparable reforms . . . until the 20th century.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.