Rachel Levy b. 27 Feb 1719 London, Middlesex, England d. 12 May 1797 New York, New York (Manhattan), New York: Americans of Jewish Descent

1719 - 1797 (78 years)

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Name	Rachel Levy [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]
Alt. Birth	17 Feb 1719	London, Middlesex, England [14]
Born	27 Feb 1719	London, Middlesex, England [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 15]
Gender	Female
Alt. Death	12 May 1797 [5]
	New York, New York, USA
Reference Number	404
Residence	Newport, Newport, Rhode Island [3]
_UID	D4CF564154AB4468AC453192567BF179D462
Died	12 May 1797	New York, New York (Manhattan), New York [3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15]
Person ID	I404	aojd-demo
Last Modified	11 Nov 2011

Father	Moses Raphael Levy, b. 1665, Germany , d. 14 Jun 1728, New York, New York (Manhattan), New York (Age 63 years)
Mother	Grace Mears, b. 1694, Spanishtown, Jamaica, West Indies , d. 14 Oct 1740, New York, New York (Manhattan), New York (Age 46 years)
Married	1717	New York [16]
Alt. Marriage	1718	London, Middlesex, England [17, 18, 19]
Alt. Marriage	The marriage to Moses Raphael Levy was arranged by Grace's Uncle Jacob Mears.
Family ID	F146	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

Family Isaac Mendes Seixas, b. 5 Sep 1708-1709, Lisbon, Portugal , d. 3 Nov 1780, Newport, Newport, Rhode Island (Age 71 years)

Married May 1740-1741 New York [7, 13, 20]

Children

	1. Abraham Seixas, b. Nov 1741, New York , d. Jun 1742 (Age ~ 0 years)
	2. Abigail Seixas, b. 17 Nov 1742, New York , d. 1 Sep 1819, Richmond, Henrico, Virginia (Age 76 years)
	3. Moses Mendes Seixas, b. 28 Mar 1744, New York , d. 29 Nov 1809, New York (Age 65 years)
	4. Hazan Gershom Mendes Seixas, b. 14 Jan 1746, New York , d. 2 Jul 1816, New York (Age 70 years)
	5. Benjamin Mendes Seixas, b. 17 Jan 1747, Newport, Newport, Rhode Island , d. 16 Aug 1817, Newport, Newport, Rhode Island (Age 70 years)
	6. Abraham Mendes Seixas, b. 14 Mar 1750, New York , d. 9 Apr 1799, Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, United States (Age 49 years)
	7. Grace Mendes Seixas, b. 24 Nov 1752, New York, New York (Manhattan), New York , d. 8 Nov 1831, New York, New York (Manhattan), New York (Age 78 years)
	8. Raphael Seixas, b. 1756, New York , d. Infancy - Age Seven Months

Last Modified 11 Nov 2011

Family ID F155 Group Sheet | Family Chart

Notes

PORTRAIT IN SCRAPBOOK ------------------------ The portrait of Rachel (Levy) Seixas is reported by Hannah London in her 1926 book Portraits of Jews is attributed to John Wollaston by Mr. Lawrence Park. At that time, it was owned by N. Taylor Phillips of New York who is said to have been Rachel's grandson (AJ Note: I have not yet established this lineage). She is represented in a life-size painting to the waist, turned to her right and facing the spectator. She wears an exquisite ivory-white satin gown. The tight-fitting bodice is trimmed with wide lace, very delicately rendered. The short sleeves with bands of satin at the elbow are finished with wide white lace. Her dark hair, over which a dainty lace cap is worn, is brushed back from her forehead and worn low at the neck. Her portrait, Mr. Phillips says, has often been greatly admired for its beauty.

Source: Hannah London ------------------------ According to Malcolm Stern, Rachel Levy was born on 27 February 1719. This is the date I believe to be most likely the accurate one. (For some unknown reason, FTM insists of recording 1718/19.) Hannah London gives the year of her birth as 1710, but I doubt that this is true, that would have made her 30 at the time of her marriage to Isaac Mendes Seixas in 1740, and age 46 at the time of her youngest child's birth. ------------------------ Rachel Levy was the oldest of seven children born to Grace Mears Levy, second wife of Moses Raphael Levy. Rachel Levy was well loved throughout the entire Levy-Franks circle, even though the children from Moses's first marriage hated their step-mother. Rachel caused a social uproar in the New York Jewish community when she married London merchant Isaac Mendes Seixas, who was of Sephardic descent, in 1740. Their union crossed contemporary social, status and ethnic lines that divided eighteenth-century Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewry. The young couple moved to New Jersey where Isaac opened a "Small Country Store". The happy pair eventually produced eight children.

Ambassador Loeb who has sponsored this website is a relative of Rachel Llevy Serixas.

Source Loeb Portrait Database - painting and bio.
(Research):AJLLJ Portraits Database 5 Aug 2011

The first child from the union of New York Jewish patriarch Moses Raphael Levy and his second wife Grace Mears Levy, Rachel was born in London a year after her parents' wedding. The three of them soon crossed the Atlantic, and upon arrival in New York, mother and daughter met for the first time their new step children and half siblings, including Abigail Levy Franks. Though it proved difficult, sometimes futile, for Grace to win over these new relatives, Rachel was well loved throughout the family.
In 1740 she married a Portuguese-born merchant who had, after some time spent in Bordeaux and then England, recently made the journey to New York— Isaac Mendes Seixas. The marriage evidently caused something of an uproar among the Sephardi old guard of New York's Jewish community, who objected to Seixas' taking an Ashkenazi wife. Abigail Franks, tireless observer of her world, not to mention a relentless gossip, recorded that Seixas' uncle Rodrigo Pacheco was "displeased" by his nephew's marriage to a German Jew, and furthermore, "the Portugueze here where in A Violent Uproar abouth it for he Did not invite any of them to ye Wedding."
It was not just the "mixed-marriage"— that transgression of contemporary ethnic and class barriers— that troubled some about the union. Abigail declared that Isaac had an "Untractable Dispossion." However, after visiting with the young couple for a week at their new home in New Jersey, where Isaac opened a "Small Country Store," Abigail characterized Isaac as "A person of his Temper Soe much Mended," and that "they Seem to be very happy in each other."
They would have eight children, including Gershom Mendes Seixas.
[21]

Sources

[S81] Joseph, Anne - Research Database, Anne [Goulding] Joseph, (Shared with David M. Kleiman in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 18 March 2009).
[S285] AOJD & Heritage Muse, Inc., David M. Kleiman, (AOJD-online.net. Heritage Muse, Inc. 165 West End Ave. New York, NY 10023 [email protected]).
[S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 154 LEVY I (1) (Reliability: 3).
QUAY 3
[S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 154 LEVY I (1) (Reliability: 3).
[S33] One World Tree (sm), Ancestry.com, (Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., n.d.) (Reliability: 3).
Online publication - Ancestry.com. OneWorldTree [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc.
[S7] Adeline Moses Loeb & Carl M. Loeb, Kathy L. Plotkin, Margaret Loeb Kempner, etal (Reliability: 3).
[S3] AMLAJA, Judith E. Endelman, (unpublished manuscript), SECTION III, CH 5 PG 10 (Reliability: 3).
[S3] AMLAJA, Judith E. Endelman, (unpublished manuscript), SECTION I, CHAPTER 2, PAGE 7 (Reliability: 3).
[S334] Collections of the New York Historical Society, John Watts DePeyster, compiler, (New York: New -York Historical Society, 1905), PGE 231 (Reliability: 3).
[S32] Portraits Etched In Stone, Pool, David De Sola, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952.), MEMBER OF THE SEIXAS FAMILY MENTIONED IN THESE RECORDS, PG. 347 (Reliability: 3).
[S59] Green-Aryeh Family Tree, EMAIL 6 AUG 2010 ARYEH GREEN TO DAVID M. KLEIMAN (Reliability: 3).
[S634] Green-Aryeh Family Tree, EMAIL 6 AUG 2010 ARYEH GREEN TO DAVID M. KLEIMAN (Reliability: 3).
[S165] Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970, National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.), CARDOZO, DANIEL HENRY, JR.: FILED 9 FEB 1929, ACCEPTED 8 MAR 1929. NAT. # 48504 (Reliability: 3).
[S81] Joseph, Anne - Research Database, Anne [Goulding] Joseph, (Shared with David M. Kleiman in Montreal, Quebec, Canada 18 March 2009) (Reliability: 3).
[S3] AMLAJA, Judith E. Endelman, (unpublished manuscript), CHAPTER 5 PG 9 (Reliability: 3).
[S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 311 CORRECTIONS TO PG. 154 (Reliability: 3).
[S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 190 MEARS (Reliability: 3).
QUAY 3
[S3] AMLAJA, Judith E. Endelman, (unpublished manuscript), SECTION 3, CHAPTER 2, PG 7 (Reliability: 3).
[S32] Portraits Etched In Stone, Pool, David De Sola, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952.), PGS. 225-226 (Reliability: 3).
[S4] FAJF-Stern, Rabbi Malcolm Stern, (3rd edition updated and revised. n.c.: Genealogical Publishing Company for the American Jewish Archives, 1991.), PG. 263 SEIXAS (1) (Reliability: 3).
[S294] Loeb Jewish Portraits Database, (http://www.loebjewishportraits.com/home.html), SEIXAS, RACHEL LEVY (Reliability: 3).

Rachel Levy[1, 2]

Rachel Levy^{[1, 2]}