This paper offers a case study in the history of Jewish assimilation through the lens of female Jewish experience. The apparent “success” of Jewish women’s conversions to Christianity in the nineteenth century obscures a more complex picture of Jewish women’s self-expression and religiosity. I argue that while a potent combination of antisemitism and misogyny led to increased conversions, Jewish women's participation in Christian spaces was a meaningful form of religious activity.
Focusing on the writings of Rahel Varnhagen, the paper situates female conversion within broader debates about gender and Jewish assimilation. In the early nineteenth century, conversion was often considered more socially acceptable for Jewish women than for men. I argue that Varnhagen’s correspondences and eventual baptism engage Christian symbolic frameworks while remaining connected to Jewish identity, revealing conversion as a layered, dynamic process rather than a singular act of assimilation.