The Exceptional and the Mundane: A Biographical Portrait of Rebecca (Machado) Phillips, 1746-1831

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The Exceptional and the Mundane: A Biographical Portrait of Rebecca (Machado) Phillips, 1746-1831

Aviva Ben-Ur

This chapter is part of: Leonard H. Ehrlich et al. 2004. Textures and Meanings: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Description
We begin with Aviva Ben-Ur’s study of the long and fascinating life of Rebecca Phillips (1746-1832), a contribution simultaneously to Jewish social history, women’s biography and American history. Drawing on a variety of sources, Ben-Ur makes effective use of indirect as well as direct evidence to recreate the life of a Jewish household in Colonial America. She illuminates the educational, culinary, medical and social dimensions of the period as she traces Phillips, nee Rebecca Machado (the family fled Portuguese persecution in the 1720’s), through the richly varied vicissitudes of her life. As carriers of memory and ritual, women such as Rebecca Phillips demonstrated the “personal piety” that defined vital communal services within patriarchal structures. Phillips’ life “embodies both the exceptional and the mundane.” Among Phillips’ many achievements were the care and supervision of an enormous family, increasingly extensive public service and philanthropy, and exemplary presence within the Jewish and larger communities of New York and Philadelphia. Phillips’ energy and devotion led her, to take but one example, to become a founder in 1801, at age 55, of the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances. At age 74, having been widowed for seventeen years, she served as First directress of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia. Such activities fostered independence and enhanced the self-esteem of women who already showed mastery of the informal aspects of life. Significantly, although Ben-Ur’s is the first biography of this, or any other, American Jewish woman during colonial times, she makes no mention of anti-Semitism after her story moves from Portugal to America.

Description

We begin with Aviva Ben-Ur’s study of the long and fascinating life of Rebecca Phillips (1746-1832), a contribution simultaneously to Jewish social history, women’s biography and American history. Drawing on a variety of sources, Ben-Ur makes effective use of indirect as well as direct evidence to recreate the life of a Jewish household in Colonial America. She illuminates the educational, culinary, medical and social dimensions of the period as she traces Phillips, nee Rebecca Machado (the family fled Portuguese persecution in the 1720’s), through the richly varied vicissitudes of her life. As carriers of memory and ritual, women such as Rebecca Phillips demonstrated the “personal piety” that defined vital communal services within patriarchal structures. Phillips’ life “embodies both the exceptional and the mundane.” Among Phillips’ many achievements were the care and supervision of an enormous family, increasingly extensive public service and philanthropy, and exemplary presence within the Jewish and larger communities of New York and Philadelphia. Phillips’ energy and devotion led her, to take but one example, to become a founder in 1801, at age 55, of the Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances. At age 74, having been widowed for seventeen years, she served as First directress of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia. Such activities fostered independence and enhanced the self-esteem of women who already showed mastery of the informal aspects of life. Significantly, although Ben-Ur’s is the first biography of this, or any other, American Jewish woman during colonial times, she makes no mention of anti-Semitism after her story moves from Portugal to America.

Details

Published	Published By
Aug. 1, 2004	University of Massachusetts Amherst
Citation
Ben-Ur A. 2004. The Exceptional and the Mundane: A Biographical Portrait of Rebecca (Machado) Phillips, 1746-1831. In Leonard H. Ehrlich et al. 2004. Textures and Meanings: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst