HART, EMANUEL BERNARD

HART, EMANUEL BERNARD (1809–1897), New York City Democratic politician and leader of Jewish institutions. Hart was born in New York City, son of Bernard Hart, a New York Stock Exchange member, and Rebecca Seixas Hart. He began his political activity in 1832 as a Jacksonian Democrat, and became a member of the Tammany Society. He served for two terms as an alderman in New York City (1845–46). Defeated in his first campaign for the federal Congress, Hart won on the second try and served from 1851 to 1853. Among many other positions which he held throughout a long, but not particularly distinguished career of office-holding were surveyor of the Port of New York (1857–62); a commissioner of Immigration (1870–73); a New York Excise commissioner (1880–83); disbursing agent at the New York custom house (1885–89); and cashier in the New York County sheriff's office (1889–93). He was also an officer in the New York State Militia. In earlier years when he was not on the public payroll, Hart was a stock and bond broker, and in later years he was a merchant. Hart was a member of Shearith Israel Congregation, as was his father, and served as president of the Mount Sinai Hospital (1870–76), when the hospital's new structure on Lexington Avenue was dedicated. He was also president of the Hebrew Home for the Aged and Infirm. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Davis, in: AJHSP, 32 (1931), 99–111; M.U. Schappes (ed.), Documentary History of the Jews in the United States (1950), 285–6, 641. (Bertram Wallace Korn)