Was Abraham Lincoln’s assassin – the famous American actor John Wilkes Booth – jewish?
This is a question that that occasionally gets brought up when mention is made of Abraham Lincoln and his not-well-known albeit relatively well documented philo-Semitism. (1)
It is often repeated as if it were absolute fact even by authors who should know better such Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell. (2) However, it is easiest to let Gene Smith explain the claim as he writes about in his history of the Booth family:
‘The father, Richard Booth, had been born in London, the son of a silversmith said to be descended from a Spanish Jew named Botha who had been expelled from his homeland in the seventeenth century for speaking against the royalist government. Richard Booth continued in the family tradition, and when the American colonists revolted against George III, Richard and a cousin decided to join their cause.’ (3)
This sounds like good evidence, but anyone who knows Spanish history knows that this claim makes no sense whatsoever. Given that Spain’s jewish population was expelled in 1492 by the famous Alhambra Decree then there wouldn’t have been a ‘jew in Spain’ who was ‘expelled from his homeland’ in the 1600s for ‘speaking against the royalist government’ precisely because there weren’t jews in Spain outside of Marranos – and remember the claim isn’t that Wilkes Booth was descended from a Marrano but from a Spanish jew – and even then relatively few of them.
Now an alternative possibility given that the alleged Sephardic ancestor of the Booths was named ‘Botha’ was that he could have come from Flanders which was then still partially in practice a part of the territory of the Habsburg rulers of Spain until 1700 when Charles II of Spain died. The problem with this is that is not specifically the claim since Botha is alleged to be a Spanish jew who was ‘expelled from his homeland’ (i.e., Spain not Spain’s Empire).
However, even if we assume that is the case Botha is not a jewish or a Spanish name but rather a Dutch one (deriving from the German surname ‘Both’ [literally ‘Stick’]) suggesting that said Botha could have come from Flanders but likely wasn’t jewish at all and at some point, was just claimed to be (probably by Wilkes Booth’s father Junius). Further it is worth pointing out that if Botha was a Marrano – which is about the only way that the claim of Sephardic ancestry could work – it would be odd for him to refer to himself – or for his descendants to believe – he was ‘Spanish’ precisely because the Marranos in England referred themselves – and were referred to by the England – as the ‘Portuguese’ not the Spanish. (4)
The point here is that the claim that Wilkes Booth had jewish ancestry via his paternal grandfather Richard Booth just doesn’t work in terms of the claim itself; it sounds great but on closer inspection we can see that the detail is just… well… wrong and self-contradictory.
It is rather like someone with a slight knowledge of jewish history has claimed that they had jewish history in a suitably vague way but with just enough detail to make it sound plausible knowing full well that their claims will be taken at face value and were nigh uncheckable.
Interestingly Jameson in his recent-ish biography of Wilkes Booth makes absolutely no mention of this alleged jewish connection when describing his ancestry:
‘John Wilkes Booth was a child of Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes. He was the fifth of the six children of that union who survived to maturity. In all, Junius fathered ten children, but since he and Mary Ann were not married at the time, all of the American-born Booth offspring were technically bastards.
Junius Brutus Booth was born in London in 1796. By the time he was seventeen, he was performing regularly in theaters throughout England and receiving wide acclaim for his work. The elder Booth arrived in America in 1821.’ (5)
Further we should that even Smith indirectly expresses scepticism when he writes that Booth was ‘said to be descended from a Spanish Jew named Botha’; (6) in other words Smith reports the claim as a possibility but expresses a broad scepticism as to the genuineness of the claim without directly condemning it as a myth.
The interesting thing here is that the origin of the claim that Wilkes Booth had jewish ancestry claim is actually his sister Asia Booth Clarke when she writes in her memoir concerning her brother that:
‘“I have not,” I said stoutly, “nor shall I forget that a black man dared to fire on us even with shot.” We knew how easy it would have been to put Stephen Hooper in a jail, and knew he nursed a smiling hatred for us because he knew that he had done us an injury and we had spared him. Wilkes said, looking seriously up from a fence rail he was repairing, holding the hammer in one hand and the nail in the fingers of the other. “Do you know that I believe you have a tinge of Jewish blood. You always cry revenge, and I notice that it strains your heart to forgive.”’ (7)
Now the problem with this reference to jewishness by Wilkes Booth in regards to Booth Clarke’s ancestry is that it is non-literal and the ‘tinge of jewish blood’ indicated by the desire to ‘always cry revenge’ and ‘it strains your heart to forgive’ is an obvious – if you know Shakespeare anyway - indirect reference to the jewish character Shylock in Shakespeare’s famous play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ who has both these qualities and just two years before Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Lincoln (i.e. in 1863); Wilkes Booth was playing Shylock in Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ (8) much as his father Junius was also famous for playing Shylock.
The point being that while many might want to take Wilkes Booth’s words literally; he clearly means them as a literary reference that Booth Clarke is simply reporting (hence why she promptly moves on to other things without going into the subject in any further detail).
However better evidence is provided by the specific claim by Booth Clarke in her memoirs regarding her father Junius Brutus Booth that:
‘In the synagogue, he was known as a Jew, because he conversed with rabbis and learned doctors, and joined their worship in the Hebraic tongue. He read the Talmud, also, and strictly adhered to many of its laws.’ (9)
This sounds like solid evidence until we realise that this has already long been addressed as a misleading selective quotation by Wilkes Booths biographers with Eleanor Farjeon explaining as long ago as 1977 that:
‘I have seen it suggested as a fact that there was a Jewish strain in the Booths, and Asia herself says elsewhere that in the Synagogue her father was known as a Jew “because he conversed with Rabbis and learned doctors, and joined their worship in the Hebraic tongue. He read the Talmud, also, and strictly adhered to many of its laws.” But then, it appears, he held all forms of religion, and all their temples sacred. “He never failed to bare his head reverently when passing a church. He worshipped at many shrines; he admired the Koran, and in his copy of that volume many beautiful passages are underscored. Days sacred to color, ore, and metals were religiously observed by him.” Asia, unnamed till she was two years old, was nearly called Ayesha “in recollection of one of Mahomet’s favourite wives”; he also wished to call “the little one… Frigga, because she came to us on Friday, which day is consecrated to the Northern Venus”; but at last she was called Asia, “in remembrance of that country where God first walked with man.”’ (10)
Farjeon’s point here is that Junius Booth did indeed hang out of rabbis and seems to have attended synagogue worship, but that he also deeply admired Islam and Quran (so much so that Asia Booth Clarke was almost called Ayesha Booth Clarke!) as well as probably would have attended a mosque regularly had there been one nearby, was similarly reverent in regard to all forms of Christianity and was also rather keen on Norse Paganism.
This then completely changes the meaning of Booth Clarke’s statement in that Junius Booth is converted not into the devout synagogue-going jew of myth but rather a weird religious dilettante and pantheist – common to the age as it happens – (11) who appears to have been mistaken by some of his children for having been a jew (note that Booth Clarke doesn’t actually say her father was a jew but rather was ‘known as a jew’ meaning that was either a jew from birth [which is not the claim made about the Booth family] or that he was accepted by jews in the synagogue and not simply thrown out even if he wasn’t himself jewish).
This is supported by Junius Booth’s biographer Stephen Archer who writes who writes how:
‘If he was to play Othello, he would wear a crescent pin and mumble maxims from the Koran (no matter that Othello is a Christian in Shakespeare’s play). If he was to present Shylock, he was a Jew all day, and, if in Baltimore, he would pass hours with a local learned Israelite discussing Hebrew history.’ (12)
Archer’s point here is that much of what Booth Clarke – as well as Junius’ son Edwin (which is also a second-hand claim and we only have Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise’s word that Edwin told him as much; although I am quite prepared to believe that he did) – (13) appear to have mistaken for jewishness was in fact both Junius Booth’s preparation for acting Shakespearean roles, (14) his broad ill-defined pantheism and also the fact it appears - from Archer’s characterization of Junius Booth at least – that he was prone to flights of romantic religious fancy (for example playing Othello as Muslim rather than as a Christian).
Hence, I am inclined to agree with Archer when he states that the claim that Junius’ father Richard Booth was ‘descended from a Spanish jew named Botha’ is almost certainly simply nonsense (15) and the product of the fact that the Booth and his children were notorious for being rather… well… a bit mad and mentally unstable. (16)
Thus, we can say that in the absence of any additional evidence; John Wilkes Booth was neither jewish nor had any known jewish ancestry.
References
(1) Cf. Isaac Markens, 1909, ‘Abraham Lincoln and the Jews’, 1st Edition, Self-Published: USA; Jonathan Sarna, 2024, ‘Jews, Lincoln, and the American Election of 1864: A Newly Discovered Broadside and Its Larger Significance’, The American Jewish Archives Journal, Vol. 76, Nos. 1-2, pp. 69-78; Jonathan Sarna, Benjamin Shapell, 2015, ‘Lincoln and the Jews: A History’, 1st Edition, New York University Press: New York
(2) Sarna, Shapell, Op. Cit., p. 154
(3) Gene Smith, 1992, ’American Gothic: The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family, Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth’, 1st Edition, Simon & Schuster: New York, p. 18; also see Stanley Kimmel, 1940, ‘The Mad Booths of Maryland’, 1st Edition, Bobs-Merrill: Indianapolis, p. 16
(4) For example, see Albert Hyamson, 1951, ‘The Sephardim of England: A History of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community 1492-1951’, 1st Edition, Methuen: London, pp. 34; 76
(5) W. C. Jameson, 2013, ‘John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave’, 1st Edition, Taylor Trade Publishing: Lanham, p. 7
(6) Smith, Op. Cit., p. 18
(7) Asia Booth Clarke, Terry Alford (Ed.), 1996, ‘John Wilkes Booth: A Sister’s Memoir’, 1st Edition, University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, p. 70
(8) https://www.universityarchives.com/auction-lot/john-wilkes-booth-appearing-as-shylock-and-petruc_8DB447EA8D; https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A8580
(9) Quoted by Sarna, Shapell, Op. Cit., p. 154
(10) Eleanor Farjeon, 1977, ‘The Unlocked Book: A Memoir of John Wilkes Booth by his sister Asia Booth Clarke’, 1st Edition, Arno Press: New York, p. 98, n. 1
(11) For example, see Charles Sanford, 1987, ‘The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson’, 1st Edition, University of Virginia Press: Charlottesville
(12) Stephen Archer, 1992, ‘Junius Brutus Booth: Theatrical Prometheus’, 1st Edition, Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale, p. 236
(13) https://forward.com/culture/217871/was-john-wilkes-booth-jewish/
(14) Implied by Kimmel, Op. Cit., p. 45
(15) https://forward.com/culture/217871/was-john-wilkes-booth-jewish/
(16) For example, see Kimmel, Op. Cit., pp. 57; 176; 269