Emma Lazarus, who left her legacy as the poet of “The New Colossus,” read by thousands at the base of the Statue of Liberty, is a shining light linked to both Jewish American heritage and United States history. Although her continuing fame is assured, she is only one of a group of Jewish women who wrote and published on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the 19th century. Living through an era of rapid change, they produced work which often reflects common themes and shared concerns.

Although they revered and loved their heritage, they described their feelings as Jewish women constrained by family and communal life, by the customs and conventions of their faith, and by their situation living as outsiders in Christian society, despite efforts at assimilation. As the century progressed, many would embrace a feminist ideology, expressing their desires to live in more authentic ways.

 

The Rediscovery of Amy Levy

No longer considered a minor literary figure, the London-born Victorian Jewish author Amy Levy (1861-1889), a member of an affluent and assimilated Jewish family, enjoyed a successful career as a poet, journalist and novelist while she was still in her twenties. During the last four decades, specialists in fields ranging from gender studies and Anglo Jewish literary history to midrash and halachic law have written books and articles on Levy, whose writings continue to be reassessed. Last year the archives and library of Cambridge University, where the 17-year-old Levy studied as one of the first female undergraduates, acquired a private collection of her letters, diaries and photographs. It is certain that this treasure trove of materials will attract even more scholars, who will discover more aspects of her writings, with its many biographical elements, and her personal life, which ended with her suicide at age 27.

Legacy After Death

Oscar Wilde penned a posthumous tribute to Levy’s genius, and memorial poems and essays were included in the pages of the B’nai B’rith periodical, The Menorah, which also published the first chapter of her novel “Reuben Sachs.” This narrative of contemporary Jewish life delivers a message calling for revival of and appreciation for spiritual values and ethnic heritage, and for the inclusion of women in both religious and secular realms.

Many modern readers will empathize with Levy’s struggles, as a woman pursing her chosen profession, as a lesbian, and as a marginalized Jew in a society where she sought acceptance, all of which would feed into her fatal depression.

“Captivity:” A Reflection on Confinement and Heritage

The metaphors of caged beasts included in Levy’s poem, “Captivity,” excerpted here, underscores her love-hate relationship to what she perceives, in Victorian vernacular, as her racial identity, and a heritage of exile:

I cannot remember my country,
The land whence I came;
Whence they brought me and chained me and made me
Nor wild thing nor tame.

This only I know of my country,
This only repeat :—

 

It was free as the forest, and sweeter
Than woodland retreat.

When the chain shall at last be broken,
The window set wide;
And I step in the largeness and freedom
Of sunlight outside;

Shall I wander in vain for my country?
Shall I seek and not find?
Shall I cry for the bars that encage me
The fetters that bind?

 

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Cheryl Kempler is an art and music specialist who works in the B’nai B’rith International Curatorial Office and writes about history and Jewish culture for B’nai B’rith Magazine. To view some of her additional content, click here.