Daughters of Israel, Daughters of the South: Southern Jewish Women and Identity in the Antebellum and Civil War South

Daughters of Israel, Daughters of the South examines southern Jewish womanhood during the Antebellum and Civil War eras. In an overwhelmingly Protestant South, Jewish women created and maintained unique American Jewish identities through their efforts in education, writing, religious observance, paid and unpaid labor, and relationships with Christian whites and enslaved African-Americans. This book examines how southern Jewish women fought proselytization through their religious convictions, challenged anti-Semitism using public and private writing, maintained a distinctive southern Judaism, promoted their own status and legitimacy as southerners, and worked diligently as Confederate ambassadors.