High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Rahel Antonie Friederike Varnhagen (German pronunciation: ) née Levin later Robert (19 May 1771 - 7 March 1833) was a German-Jewish writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celebrated biography, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (1958) written by Hannah Arendt. Arendt cherished Varnhagen as her "closest friend, though she ha been dead for some hundred years." The asteroid 100029 Varnhagen is named in her honour.