Abigail Franks

Bilhah Abigail Levy Franks (c. 1696 – 1756) was an English–born Ashkenazi Jewish woman who lived most of her life in the Province of New York, British America. Born in London and raised in New York City, she married a London-born merchant and reared a family of nine children. While committed to Jewish observance, she and her family also socialized freely in the wider Christian society. Theirs was considered one of the prominent families of colonial New York.

She is known for the letters she wrote to her eldest son, Naphtali, after he moved to England. Spanning the years 1733 to 1748, these letters describe the political and social milieu of 18th-century New York, together with the assimilation and interfaith marriage that affected Jewish families. Two of Abigail's children married outside of the religion and all of her grandchildren assimilated.

Early life Bilhah Abigail Levy was born in London to Moses (Raphael) Levy, a German–Jewish merchant, and his wife Richea (Rycha) Asher. She had four brothers. Her mother died when she was 11 and her father remarried to Grace Mears, with whom he had eight more children. Nevertheless, Abigail ran a traditional Jewish home, including strict Sabbath observance, Jewish holiday observance, and a kosher kitchen. these portraits are contained in original frames and touted as "the oldest surviving portraits of colonial American Jews, and the oldest family-series portraits to survive in all of American painting". The portraits – held to represent Moses Levy, Grace Mears Levy, Jacob Franks, Abigail Franks, Naphtali Franks, and two other children of Abigail and Jacob – are believed to have been painted in the 1720s and 1730s by Gerardus Duyckinck. They reflect the "costume, background, and pose" of English aristocrats and give no outward indication that the subjects are Jewish.