3 - Jewish persuasions: gender and the culture of conversion

Summary

In an Appeal to the Females of the United Kingdom, published by ‘A Lady’ in London in the 1810s, pious Englishwomen were exhorted to consider ‘the degraded situation of the Poor Jewesses’. Enjoying the privileges of Christianity and prosperity, the author writes, ‘we can scarcely imagine to ourselves, any situation so entirely without comfort, as the lower ranks of Jewish women’ (3). She goes on to detail the material situation of such women:

sunk in the grossest ignorance, without a single correct idea of religion, or even the common restraints of education, these poor unprotected young females are exposed to the snares and designs of the unprincipled. The consequences may be easily imagined; and it is well ascertained, that great numbers of them are wandering about the streets of London, sinking under the accumulated horrors attendant upon poverty and vice. The prejudices subsisting between Jews and Christians deprive these unfortunate victims of many of the advantages which are afforded to others in the same wretched situation, many of them are left to perish in infamy, without an eye to pity, or a hand stretched out to relieve them … does not every female in happier circumstances feel herself called upon to attend to her perishing sister, when she says, ‘Oh! pity me, for the hand of God hath touched me’?