Jewish women have been recorded in entrepreneurial roles as early as the fifth century BCE, and many women held vital roles in their communities’ economies. Around the world, Jewish women took part in moneylending, trading, and property ownership, both with their husbands and independently.

Benvenida Abravanel, both born into and married within the important Abravanel family of Spain and Portugal, was one of the most influential, wealthiest, and charitable Jewish women of early modern Italy. After fleeing the Iberian peninsula, her family settled in Naples, stayed in Venice, and then resettled in Ferrara. Her family life, however, was wracked by strife, including the presence of her husband Samuel’s illegitimate son in the family and a struggle within the family over her husband’s assets after he died.