Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects

Description: In The Art of the Jewish Family, Laura Arnold Leibman examines five objects owned by a diverse group of Jewish women who all lived in New York in the years between 1750 and 1850: a letter from impoverished Hannah Louzada seeking assistance; a set of silver cups owned by Reyna Levy Moses; an ivory miniature owned by Sarah Brandon Moses, who was born enslaved and became one of the wealthiest Jewish women in New York; a book created by Sarah Ann Hays Mordecai; and a family silhouette owned by Rebbetzin Jane Symons Isaacs. These objects offer intimate and tangible views into the lives of Jewish American women from a range of statuses, beliefs, and lifestyles--both rich and poor, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, slaves and slaveowners.

Each chapter creates a biography of a single woman through an object, offering a new methodology that looks past texts alone to material culture in order to further understand early Jewish American women's lives and restore their agency as creators of Jewish identity. While much of the available history was written by men, the objects that Leibman studies were made for and by Jewish women. Speaking to American Jewish life, women's studies, and American history, The Art of the Jewish Family sheds new light on the lives and values of these women, while also revealing the social and religious structures that led to Jewish women being erased from historical archives.

The Art of the Jewish Family was the winner of three 2020 National Jewish Book Awards: the Celebrate 350 Award for American Jewish Studies, the Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award for History, and the Barbara Dobkin Award for Women's Studies.

Brief description: Laura Arnold Leibman is professor of English and humanities at Reed College.

Review Quotes: "From the moment this book opens as Judith de Mere­da steps off a ​'creaky deck' and into ​'mud­dy streets, ' we know that we are in the hands of a ter­rif­ic writer. In this bril­liant­ly researched and rich­ly illus­trat­ed book, we jour­ney to New York City in the cen­tu­ry between 1750 and 1850. . . . She dis­cov­ers America's Jew­ish women shap­ing ​'the emo­tion­al land­scape of Amer­i­can Judaism.' More­over, her path­break­ing vol­ume com­mands that atten­tion be paid to mate­r­i­al cul­ture in future writ­ing about Amer­i­can Jew­ish history."
--American Jewish Studies: Celebrate 350 Award (Winner), Judges' Remarks "2020 National Jewish Book Awards"