Jewish american history art, history, heritage museum exhibit

JEWISH LEADER IN AMERICAN SOCIETY:

ABIGAIL LEVY FRANKS

Poster used with permission of The American Jewish Archives

London-born Abigail Levy (1696-1756) and her London-born husband Jacob Franks (1687-1769) eventually became one of the colonial New York's most important merchant shipping families. When her daughter Phila leaves her Orthodox Jewish home for intermarriage to Oliver Delancey, Abigail becomes, in her own words "for some time soe depresst it was a pain to speak or see anyone...I wish it was in my power to leave this part of the world. I would come away in the first man of war that went to London."

She became twice "depresst"- her son David also marries a non-Jew of aristocratic background. A prolific correspondent, her many letters reveal vivid pictures of the lives of her class, the elite of eighteenth-century New York. She represents a memorable amalgam of the Jewish heritage, non-Jewish European culture and a newly emergent North American society.

FAU Wimberly Library Special Collections and Archives
Email us at: LYSCA@Fau.edu