Mordecai Noah, whose writings span from the 1800s to the 1840s, is the first important Jewish writer to appear on the American scene. In his own time, he was ranked with Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper as among the finest writers of the day. Noah is primarily known today as the visionary who proposed a Jewish homeland, to be called Ararat in upstate New York. But Noah also had a political career which was equally colorful. As American...