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Glückel of Hameln (also spelled Gluckel or Gluckl of Hamelin) (1647, Hamburg - September 17, 1727, Metz) was a Jewish businesswoman and diarist, whose account of her life provides scholars with an intimate picture of Jewish life in Germany in the late-seventeenth-early eighteenth century. Written in Yiddish, her diaries were originally intended for her descendants. The first part is actually a living will urging them to live ethical lives. It was only much later that historians discovered the diaries and began to appreciate her account of life at that time.
Glückel lived in the town of Hamelin, where her husband was an affluent businessman. Already involved in his business during his lifetime, when he died in 1689, she took over the business, conducting trade with markets as far as Amsterdam, Leipzig, Berlin, Vienna, Metz and Paris.
In 1700 she remarried, to a banker from Metz in Lorraine, and relocated there. Two years later, her husband failed financially, losing not only his own fortune but hers as well. He died in 1712, leaving her a widow for a second time. [Liptzin, 1972, 14]
In her diaries, begun in 1690, she describes key events in both Jewish and world history, such as the messianic fervor surrounding Sabbatai Zevi or the impact of the Swedish wars waged by King Charles XII. At the same time, she also describes day-to-day life among the Jewish inhabitants of the Rhine valley. Other scholars point to the fact that they constitute an early document in Yiddish, predating the rise of modern Yiddish literature, while still others note that they were written by a woman, a rarity for Jewish texts from that period.
Her diaries were left off in 1699, shortly before her second marriage, and resumed 1715–1719, after her second husband's death. [Liptzin, 1972, 15]
Glückel's twelve children by her first husband married into the most prominent Jewish families of Europe. [Liptzin, 1972, 14]
The Jewish Museum in Berlin has devoted an entire floor to Glückel of Hamelin, intended to provide a sense of what life was like for the Jews of Germany before their emancipation.
Sol Liptzin describes Glückel as "well versed in the legendary lore of the Talmud", familiar with the popular, ethically oriented Musar tracts, and "profoundly influenced by Tkhines, devotional prayers for women". "Her style," he writes, "had the charm of simplicity and intimacy and the qualities of sincerity, vividness and picturesqueness." [Liptzin, 1972, 15]
Bibliography
The only known translation into English in print is:
- Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln translated by Marvin Lowenthal, 1977 (ISBN 0805205721)
References
- This article draws on the corresponding article in the Hebrew Wikipedia, retrieved February 22, 2004.
- Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972, ISBN 0-8246-0124-6.he:גליקל מהמלין