The Anglo-Jewish author Grace Aguilar lived in the early nineteenth century when England was experiencing revolutions and reforms in philosophy, politics, and religion. The daughter of Sephardic immigrants, Aguilar authored novels, poetry, essays, theology, and midrash. She is perhaps the most well-known and the most prolific nineteenth-century Anglo-Jewish woman writer. Aguilar's works, especially her theology, channel various ideological streams that were running through English thought in the early nineteenth century. Aguilar, who is usually considered a "traditionally observant" Jew, presents herself as a Victorian woman who values the very "Victorian" concepts of domesticity and womanhood present in much nineteenth-century literature for women. The ideal Victorian woman is pure and good, tends to the needs of her children, husband, and home, and is the religious center of the home; Aguilar preached the importance of these domestic values in her theological work. Though ostensibly traditional in these respects, her theological works argue for the political emancipation of the Jews, for radical reforms in Jewish belief and practice, and for the value and dignity of Jewish women, all while she defends Judaism against disparagement from Christians and provides a model of conduct for Jewish women. This work seeks to present the "spirit" of Grace Aguilar's theological works The Women of Israel (1845) and The Spirit of Judaism (1842) through three different historical lenses. By "spirit" I mean the driving force behind her theology, that which moves her arguments: her own unique concept of the "Jewish spirit.
