Billy Simmons (also known as Billy Simons; c. 1780 - c. 1860) was an African-American Jew from Charleston, South Carolina, one of the few documented Black Jews living in the Antebellum South. Simmons was a scholar in both Hebrew and Arabic.^[1]

Simmons was born in Madagascar. Simmons claimed to be a descendant of a Rechabite tribe, a claim that two cantors and other Jewish authorities supported. Purchased by white Jewish enslavers, Simmons was taken into captivity and brought to South Carolina. A newspaper editor in Charleston enslaved him and forced him to deliver newspapers.^[2]

Despite anti-Black restrictions in the constitution of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim that banned Black converts from membership, Simmons was among the few African-American Jews known to have attended the synagogue during the antebellum period.^[3][4] Simmons attended the synagogue during the 1850s and was known to members as Uncle Billy. Simmons was known to attend Shabbat services wearing a black top hat, black suit, and frilly shirt.^[5]

A drawing of Billy Simmons is held by the Special Collections Library of the College of Charleston.^[6]

• History of the Jews in Charleston, South Carolina
• Isaac Lopez Brandon
• Sarah Brandon Moses
• Lucy Marks

• African Americans, ambivalence, and antisemitism, Journal for the Study of Antisemitism