Here is the article I was thinking about--and one paragraph:
Hamilton was born January 11, 1755, on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, the illegitimate son of James Hamilton, a merchant from Scotland, and Rachel Fawcett Levine, a doctors daughter who was divorced from a plantation owner. His unmarried parents separated when Hamilton was 9, and he went to live with his mother, who taught him French and Hebrew and how to keep the accounts in a small dry goods shop by which she supported herself and Hamiltons older brother, James. She died of yellow fever when Alexander was 13.
http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=Alexander+Hamilton+Smithsonian+Magazine&ei=UTF-8&n=20&fl=0&u=www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues03/jan03/hamilton.html&w=alexander+hamilton+smithsonian+magazine&d=CC9A7CA759&icp=1
I have no idea where the symbols on our money come from. The early Pilgrims studied Hebrew. In fact, they debated making it the official language of their settlement but found it lacked sufficient vocabulary. They also wanted their legal code to track the rules of the Old Testament. The motto of Yale, begun by their Congregationist heirs is in Hebrew and Harvard has one of the largest collections of old books written in Hebrew in the world.
Thanks for the info!!
Never mind my post 85. Here's what I found on pages 8-9 of Ron Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton":
"The archives of St. George's Parish... record the marriage of John Faucette to a British woman, Mary Uppington on August 17, 1718...In all the Faucettes produced seven children; Hamilton's mother, Rachel, being the second youngest, born circa 1729."
I am presuming that Mr. Chernow did his homework. If so, it would seem to me that he would have said that Rachel's full name would have included "Levine" but that does not appear to be the case. I think the magazine article is picking up on the fact that Rachel had at one time been married to a person by the name of Lavien, who in all probability was Jewish, but that does not make her Jewish by blood.
Furthermore, Mr. Chernow refers to statements that Hamilton himself was partly black as "pure mythology" (page 9).