Mistress Eliane Halevy
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Persona Type: Primary Name
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Eliane is the (adult) daughter of a Jewish silk merchant in Tours, France in the 1520s. Her father left Zaragoza with his parents/siblings in the 1480s, when things were looking bad for Jews in northern Spain; his family went to Marseille, where he met Eliane's mother, and the couple moved North to Tours where they heard the silk trade was booming. (Eliane's family spent some time in Italy when she was a teenager, for her father to learn more about silk production and trade; that's why she sometimes wears Italian-style gowns.)
Eliane's family speaks Ladino in the home (sounds kind of like Spanish) and enjoys singing Sephardic songs. She is also fluent in French, has a little Italian, and knows the odd Latin word here and there, as her family does a lot of business with the community of the Cathedral of St. Martin of Tours. As a child she was taught to read in French and in Hebrew, and she has some access to books in both languages through the Jewish community, but is not a scholar by any means. She helps out her father/siblings with the silk fabric business and sings just within the family, for fun, though she once went into the Cathedral by accident and heard some choral music which haunts her dreams.
Eliane might be a widow. Jennifer is not really sure; this was something from her early stabs at a persona story, and other details that involved her marriage/widowhood have since gone out the window, so maybe she's not a widow. Jennifer doesn't believe that the circumstances of a persona's life have to mirror that of the person's life, esp. since Eliane's community wouldn't have allowed aspects of Jennifer's single adult life like dating, snuggling at the bardic circle, online personals, etc. Frankly, though, if Eliane is single/never married as an adult in her time/place/religion, there'd have to be something wrong with her, so having no other good explanation for why she is single, widowhood appeals. (It wouldn't have been a happy or long marriage, though.)
Although Jennifer does kneel to Royalty in Court when called up (which Eliane would not have done, since Jews kneel only to G-d), she pledges service rather than swearing fealty, since one Jewish belief that Eliane and Jennifer share is that of not swearing oaths. And while Jennifer does not keep Kosher (please, give her bacon!), she does honor Eliane's kosher practices by not wearing fabric made both of animal and plant fibers.
Most of the things you see/hear Jennifer do at an SCA event are not specific to her persona, and she is not a good enough actress to have conversations or teach classes "in persona", though she very much admires people who do!
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