Jewishness and Judaism

Abstract

Jewish and Christian women writers expressed a dazzling variety of approaches to issues of Judaism, Jewishness, and Jewish identity in nineteenth-century England. Their work demonstrates the complexity of the issue itself, highlighting how Jewishness is always an intersectional identity in its religious, ethnic, and cultural manifestations. Likewise, studying the wide range of representations of Jewishness by women in this period offers key insights into the complex connections between Jewish and British history, society, religion, and gender. Often excluded from generalized narratives and histories about Victorian literature, both Jewish and Christian women's writing on issues of Jewishness, Judaism, and Jewish identity offer key insights, serving as an under-tapped resource for understanding women writers in English literary history.