When Elliott Hamilton (Claremont, 2015) talks about his identity, he does not describe it as a choice between two parts of himself.

He is proudly Jewish. Proudly Zionist. Proudly American. And, as he recently formalized through his designation with the Sons of the American Revolution, he is also a direct heir to one of the families that helped create the United States.

For Hamilton, those identities do not compete with each other, they strengthen each other.

“I fully embrace this idea that I am a son of the American Revolution and a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” he said. “I carry two extraordinary legacies with me at all times.”

That sense of dual inheritance has become especially meaningful as America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary in 2026. For many, the semiquincentennial will be a moment to look back at the founding ideals of the United States. For Hamilton, it is also a moment to reflect on what America has meant to the Jewish people and what Jewish leadership can mean for America.

Hamilton was raised in Newton, Massachusetts, and came to the Claremont Colleges in Southern California looking for a change of scenery. He had grown up active in USY, had already been to Israel and considered himself strongly connected to Jewish identity and Zionism. But when he first arrived on campus, he did not immediately jump into Jewish life.

That changed as campus life changed around him.

During his college years, anti-Israel activism and antisemitic activity became more visible and more aggressive. Hamilton became involved with Hillel and Claremont Students for Israel, eventually serving as Israel chair and later as president of the pro-Israel organization. He remembers a mock checkpoint demonstration, growing hostility toward Jewish and Israeli students, and moments when he felt Jewish institutions on campus were not pushing back strongly enough.

Then AEPi entered the picture.

Hamilton had not planned to join a fraternity. In fact, he had chosen Claremont in part because Greek life was not part of the campus culture. But when AEPi began its effort to establish a colony at the Claremont Colleges, he came to see the fraternity as something different from what he had imagined.

Jewish life on campus, he said, needed more organization, more confidence and more men willing to lead openly as Jews. AEPi arrived “at the right place at the right time.”

Hamilton became one of the founding fathers of the Chi Chi colony and served as its founding Jewish Identity Chairman. He took that role seriously. “It was going to be my charge to maintain that this wasn’t a fraternity of Jews,” he said, “that instead, this was a Jewish fraternity.”

That distinction became real when a mezuzah was torn from the doorpost of an AEPi brother’s dorm room after an Israeli flag had also been stolen. Hamilton was angry. But the brothers decided not to respond with fear or retreat. Instead, AEPi and Chabad worked together to bring dozens of mezuzot to campus. Hamilton accompanied the Chabad rabbi from door to door as they helped Jewish students proudly place mezuzot on their rooms.

If someone wanted to tear down one sign of Jewish identity, the brothers would respond by putting up many more.

“We were not going to respond with hate,” Hamilton said. “We were going to respond with love for Klal Yisrael.”

That moment helped define Hamilton’s AEPi experience. He found brothers who supported him when his pro-Israel advocacy made him unpopular in some corners of campus. He found a network that encouraged him to speak more clearly, act more boldly and live more fully as a Jewish leader.

“AEPi was completely instrumental in pushing me to become the best version of myself,” he said.

After college, Hamilton attended Boston College Law School and later spent six years as a criminal prosecutor in the Bronx before moving into private practice. He sees his legal career, too, through the lens of Jewish life. The pursuit of truth, ethical responsibility, study, argument and service all connect to the way he approaches Torah, Talmud and Jewish tradition. He also continues to work to promote Jewish traditions and continuity as a ba’al teshuva and serves as a Senior Fellow at Manhattan Jewish Experience to inspire young Jewish professionals to embrace Jewish traditions and customs

That same sense of legacy led him to the Sons of the American Revolution.

Hamilton has long known that he is related to William Floyd, a New York delegate to the Second Continental Congress and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Floyd served as a major general in the militia and risked his land, family, and future for the cause of American liberty. Hamilton’s family history also connects him to Major Benjamin Tallmadge, a key intelligence officer for George Washington and leader of the Culper Spy Ring.

For much of his youth, Hamilton found that side of his family history easier to trace than his Jewish lineage. Like many American Jews descended from families who fled persecution, pogroms and, later, the devastation of the Shoah, his mother’s side carried a different kind of history — sacred, resilient and powerful, but often harder to document generation by generation.

Over time, and especially through the Jewish confidence he strengthened in college, Hamilton came to see both inheritances as gifts. His membership in the Sons of the American Revolution, he said, was “a mere formality” marking something he already knew to be true. He is part of the American story and the Jewish story. Both are his.

As America approaches 250 years tomorrow (July 4, 2026), Hamilton believes Jewish Americans should embrace that same confidence. Jewish history in America is not marginal or accidental. From the earliest Jewish settlers in New Amsterdam to George Washington’s famous letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, America has offered Jews a framework of religious liberty unmatched in much of Jewish history.

That freedom is not something Hamilton takes for granted. As an attorney, he has sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution. As a Jew, he sees those laws as part of what allows him and others to practice freely, speak openly and live proudly.

For Hamilton, America’s 250th celebration is not only about the past. It is a call to responsibility. “You don’t have to choose,” he said. “That is a false choice between being a proud Jew and being a proud American.”

He is both. And as AEPi brothers in the United States prepare to mark this historic American milestone, Hamilton’s story is a reminder that Jewish leadership has always had a place in the American story and still has a vital role in shaping its future.

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