Ronda Angel Arking is Managing Editor of Conversations, the journal of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. She is an active member of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Baltimore. This article appears in Conversations, issue 3.
One of the most influential writers of Jewish philosophy, theology, and fiction during the early Victorian period was Grace Aguilar. A traditional Spanish and Portuguese Jew, Aguilar spent most of her short life living outside of a structured Jewish community. Yet her vast knowledge of biblical, and even some rabbinical, texts—as well as her highly Romantic prose—brought her works to a wide audience of both Jews and Christians.
