LEVY, JUDITH:
English philanthropist; born in London 1706; died there Jan. 20, 1803; a daughter of Moses Hart, founder of the Great Synagogue, London; married Elias Levy, a wealthy financier and government contractor. This lady, who lived to a great age, enjoyed after her husband's death an income of £6,000 a year, and dwelt in great splendor at a house formerly belonging to Heydigger, master of the revels to King George II. She frequented many of the nobility's social gatherings and played half-guinea quadrille with the Countess of Yarmouth, Lady Holdernesse, Lord Stormont, and other persons of rank.
Judith Levy was a generous benefactress to her coreligionists, and in 1790 contributed £4,000 toward the cost of rebuilding the Great Synagogue. The last years of her life were spent in seclusion, now at Bath, sometimes at Richmond, and occasionally in Albermarle street, where she died. She died intestate, leaving a sum of £125,000 at her bankers; and was buried on Jan. 21 in the Jewish cemetery at Mile End.
- Lysons, Environs of London, Supplement, p. 68;
- Cat. Anglo-Jew. Hist. Exh. 1887;
- Notes and Queries, 2d series, xii.;
- Picciotto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History, p. 96.
