The Women of Israel - Volume 2 : Or, Characters and Sketches from the Holy Scriptures, and Jewish History

Presented in the form of a series of biographical essays, this 1845 history of Hebrew women traces a continuity from the biblical matriarchs to the Jewish women of Aguilar's own generation. Volume 2 continues with Old Testament and Talmudic heroines and concludes with a section on modern Jewish women.

Grace Aguilar (1818–1847), a prolific nineteenth-century novelist and Jewish historian of Sephardic descent, was better known for her works of fiction, but in this 1845 publication she addresses Jewish history from a female perspective. These two volumes consist of a series of biographical essays on Old Testament, Talmudic and modern Jewish women. Aguilar identifies a need for more female biography of scripture, postulating a continuity between the biblical matriarchs and the Jewish women of her generation. Addressing a female readership, Aguilar writes in a didactic and highly evangelical tone characteristic of the period, using her historical discussion to argue for the emancipation of Jews, particularly Jewish women, who should also have full access to all Jewish religious texts. This second volume focuses on Aguilar's latter four periods of history. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=aguigr