Roster of Early Texas Jewish Officeholders
State Legislators
Jacob De Cordova (1808-1868), Houston, 1847-1848.
Jacob De Cordova
Nicholas Adolphus Sterne, Nacogdoches, 1847-1851.
Nicholas Adolphus Sterne
Moritz Kopperl (1826-1886), Galveston, 1876-1879.
Henry Labatt (1832-1900), Galveston, 1881-1885.
Morris Lasker (1840-1916), Galveston, 1895-1897.
Eugene Nordhaus (1865-1929), San Antonio, 1915-1919.
Henry Hertzberg, San Antonio, 1919-1922.
City Council Members
Fred Florence, Alto, 1918-1919.
Simon Mussina (1805-1889), Austin, 1871.
Gabriel Raphael, Brownsville, 1875-1877.
Adolph Bollack (1841-1927), Brownsville, 1882-1883.
Marx Goldstein (1857-1927), Bryan, 1883-1885.
Sam Levy, Bryan, 1912-1916.
John Mike (1860-1914), Bryan, u.-u.
Abraham Epstein (1828-1891), Calvert, 1880-1882.
Rudolph Oscar (1840-1905), Calvert, 1880-1905.
Julius Henry (1839-1912), Corpus Christi, 1886-1888.
Alexander Sanger (1847-1925), Dallas, 1873-1874.
Emanuel Tillman, Dallas, 1879-1884.
Sigmund Loeb (1842-1892), Dallas, 1883-1892.
Samuel Klein (1852-1914), Dallas, 1889-1892.
Charles Kahn (1830-1910), Dallas, 1892-1895.
Leopold Wolfson (1853-aft. 1902), Dallas, 1895-1899.
Adolph Krakauer, El Paso, 1880-81, 1885-1889.
Joseph Schutz (1831-94), El Paso, 1885-1887.
Samuel Freudenthal (1863-1939), El Paso, 1887-1889.
Adolph Solomon, El Paso, 1889-1894.
Ernest Kohlberg (1857-1910), El Pasom, 1893-1895.
Ernest Kohlberg
Joseph Reisman (1845-1916), Ennis, 1874-1875.
Michael Seeligson, Galveston, 1840-1841, 1848-1849.
Isador Dyer (1813-88), Galveston, 1854-1855, 1861-1864, 1876-1877.
Isaac Moses (ca. 1818-89), Galveston, 1868-1870.
Moritz Kopperl, Galveston, 1871-1872.
Felix Halff (1830-1911), Galveston, 1875-1877.
Joseph Levy (1844-1922), Galveston, 1871-1875.
Albert Weis (1860-1919), Galveston, 1875-1877.
Moses Ullmann (1844-1929), Galveston, 1887-1892.
Bernard Levy (1850-1908), Galveston, 1890-1894, 1899-1901.
Isaac Kempner, Groesbeck, u.-u.
Jacob De Cordova, Houston, 1844-1846.
Moses Reichman (1838-1887), Houston, 1863-1867.
Henry Fox (1832-1898), Houston, 1864-1866, 1892-1894.
Henry Freund (1850-1895), Houston, 1888-1892, 1894-1895,
Jules Hirsch (1854-1926), Houston, 1892-1896.
Isaac Rosenthal (1826-1906), LaGrange, 1880-1905.
William Kamsler (bef. 1850-aft. 1904), Mexia, 1881-1885.
Julius Nussbaum (1856-1935), Mexia, 1901-1905.
Nicholas Adolphus Sterne, Nacognoches, 1836 (Mexico).
Harry Crager (1862-1904), Orange, 1903-1904.
Louis Zork (1812-1885), San Antonio, 1856-1857.
August Lewy, San Antonio, 1898-1902.
Max Schwartz (1865-1939), Schulenberg, u.-u.
William Levy, Sherman, 1873-1881, 1883-1889.
Jake Levy, Sherman, 1883-1887.
Sam Lewis, Taylor, alderman, 1889-1890.
Sam Lewis, Yoakum, alderman, 1899 (resigned days after being sworn-in upon learning town officials failed to count one ward’s votes which would have elected his opponent).
Source
- Mark Rutzik, Breaking New Ground: The Untold Story of Early America’s Jewish Electoral Pioneers – 1788 to 1920, 2025.
Mark Rutzick is the curator of this Jewish Officeholders exhibit.