Kansas Leadership Offices
Kansas had a small contingent of Jewish officeholders in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Kansas’s Jewish population was 819 in 1877 and rose to 9,450 by 1917.
Fifteen Jewish Kansans won 35 elections, 35th highest in the country.
Eleven of the fifteen Jewish officeholders won leadership offices (mayors and county leaders)–a leadership quotient among the highest of any state.
Their seventeen leadership victories (out of thirty-five elections) were the highest proportion of leadership wins of any state.
Kansas’s eleven Jewish mayors ranked 23rd in the nation and exceeded such higher-Jewish-population states as Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.
Kansas’s Jewish Mayors
Sol Kohn (1846-1920), Wichita, 1879.
Leopold Cohen (1838-1913), Seneca, 1883-1885.
Adolph Gluck (1843-1917), Dodge City, 1891, 1893-1895, 1909-1911.
Aaron Urbansky (1839-1904), St. Mary’s, 1891-1892, 1896-1897, 1899-1900.
Solomon Ettinger (1849-1913), Topeka, 1893.
Albert Sarbach (1869-1909), Holton, 1899-1901.
Simon Fishman (1878-1956), Greeley 1907-1908.
Jacob Cohen (1866-1913), Seneca, 1907-1911.
Samuel Clasen (1884-1968), Rosedale, 1911-1912.
Benjamin Heilbrun (1855-1925), Osage City, 1915-1925.
Julius Gottlieb (1869-1921), Pleasanton, 1919-1921.
City/County Leaders
Sol Kohn, Sedgewick County board chairman, 1872-1874.
Samuel Clasen, Rosedale city council president, 1910.
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 Kansas Leadership exhibit.
Kansas Territorial Centennial U.S. Postage Stamp