Rosa Sonneschein’s Fin-the-Siècle Fiction: The Clashing Worlds of Zionism, Reform Judaism, Feminism and Conformity

Rosa Sonneschein (1847–1932) was an important figure in late nineteenth-century American journalism, activism, and fiction. While a few brief studies were dedicated to her biography and to her role as a Jewish social activist, editor, and contributor to The American Jewess, no critical work has been devoted as yet to her literary production. The aim of this essay is to rectify this critical neglect by examining Sonneschein’s wide literary opus and by investigating its connection, if any, to the views she expressed as a journalist and a public speaker. This essay will explore Sonneschein’s threefold literary oeuvre, consisting of the following genres: Jewish fiction, non-Jewish fiction, and literary sketches. It will also try to explicate Rosa’s often conflicting stance with regard to Judaism, feminism, and Zionism, a standpoint which should be examined in the context of the fin-the-siècle’s turbulent changes American society had to cope with, especially pertaining to massive immigration, religious and social reforms, suffrage and temperance movements, etc.