Review
Between 1830 and 1880, the Jewish community flourished in England. During this time known as "baskalah", or the Anglo-Jewish Enlightenment, Jewish women in England became the first Jewish women anywhere to publish novels, histories, periodicals, theological tracts, and conduct manuals. The Origin Of The Modern Jewish Woman Writer analyzes this critical but forgotten period in the development of Jewish women's writing in relation to Victorian literary history, women's cultural history, and Jewish cultural history. Until now, most studies of Jews in Victorian literary history have focused on Christian writers' representations of Jews or the sparse literature created by Jewish men. Michael Galchinsky rediscovers the earliest modern Jewish women writers, bringing to light numerous previously undiscovered or undiscussed sources, including Grace Agular's unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and tributes; Marion Hartog's "Jewish Sabbath Journal", (the first Jewish women's periodical in modern history); and articles, tales, and midrashim published in standard periodicals such as the "Jewish Chronicle". Galchinsky demonstrates that these women writers were the most widely recognized spokespersons for the "haskalah". Their romances (some of which sold as well as novels by Dickens) argued for Jews' emancipation in the Victorian world and women's emancipation in the Jewish world. In addition to offering significant revisions of the development of the English novel, the study provides new perspectives on Victorian liberalism, orientalism, and conversionism and suggests new interpretations of Victorian domestic ideology, the feminization of religion, and the advent of feminist political and literary institutions. The perspective of these women writers is a welcome addition to English literary history. -- Midwest Book Review
--This text refers to the
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