The letter pictured above is an example of a familiar letter from a Jewish mother, Rachel Pereire, to her son, Pierre. In describing intimate details of family affairs to her son, Pereire’s writing reflects many of the prime ideals held towards letter composition in the eighteenth century; she uses the letter as an opportunity to not only express sincere love and gratitude towards Pierre but also to urge him to connect with other relatives following the death of his aunt, Coura. This letter holds significance in the sense that it emphasizes the sacredness of kinship ties within Jewish communities and how letter writing was utilized as a means to breed communication and connection. It also feels important to note that this feels representative of how Jewish women were depicted in the few available records from early America; in this case, we see Pereire communicating with Pierre about life cycles.
Now quiz yourself on familiar letters!
Sources:
Loker, Zvi. “Were There Jewish Communities in Saint Domingue (Haiti)?” Jewish Social Studies, vol. 45, no. 2, 1983, pp. 135–146. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4467216. Accessed 14 Feb. 2021.
Hey Caitlin,
I really enjoyed your analysis of this letter. While I admit that I didn’t get a perfect score on the quiz, it was very useful to getting a more complete and concise understanding of both Rachel’s letter and familial letters in general. Even this one example highlights the importance of keeping family connection and tradition alive through written communication: “I wish that this [letter-writing] should continue every month and ask you not to neglect it.” After reading the letter, you can really feel Rachel’s love for her son, but also fear that she will grow apart from him if he does not write back.
This quiz was so helpful to make sure I understood the concepts of the familiar letters! Thanks so much for sharing and taking the time to make the quiz 🙂
This was an excellently done Quiz. The questions were ones that give greater understanding of the material and were well worded, which are the two most important parts of a quiz. Good Job! Have a wonderful day.
This quiz was hard but super helpful for drawing out key ideas from the readings! Your analysis is great. Letters from mothers to sons and fathers to sons are one of the big genres we have from Jews from this era. The most famous examples are of Abigail Levy Franks to her children. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Letters_of_Abigaill_Levy_Franks_1733/aLmheIUSwJsC?hl=en&gbpv=0
I really like how you get at the way that this letter tries to keep connections strong across great distances.
best,
Laura
I really enjoyed reading your analysis of the letter. I think that it was super helpful to have a summary of both what the letter was discussing and why letter writing was important for Jewish communities. I really enjoyed the quiz- I think that it was super useful to ensure that I understood the material for this class period.