AGUILAR, GRACE. Women of Israel.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

D. Appleton

New York

1852

Two volumes. Frontispiece portrait of Author. First Edition.

Singerman 1171

The First Comprehensive Study of Jewish Women Written by a Jew. In this highly original pre-feminist work, the Author sketches a history of Jewish women from the Biblical period through the contemporary age. Culled from a wide array of sources, Grace Aguilar issued this work for her co-religionists, stating in the Preface that authors of previous such works “are Christians [who only] write for the Christian world…The characters of the Old Testament are so briefly and imperfectly sketched compared to those of the New.” Aguilar believed that the spiritual level of any given Jewish Community depended upon the state of the social-culture of the country in which it resided. She believed that the Jews of America benefited from the most freedom: “The Hebrew advantages in that land are more numerous even than in England…and American Jews ha(ve) the greatest opportunities to cultivate the Jewish spirit.”