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Article Evaluation

Glückel of Hameln

• Most of the information in this article is relevant. I found that the inclusion of information regarding a museum exhibit about Glückel of Hameln was misplaced, however. It is under a section dealing with the subject's diaries and seems better suited for the introductory leading section. There were also some formatting issues that I found rather glaring.
• The article is neutral and all viewpoints are equally represented.
• Three of the citation links did not work, but what was available matched the article's claims.
• Sources seem neutral, but not everything is cited. Citations are needed in the History of the Diary and Descendants sections.
• While the information seems to be up to date, there could be more of it. There is an existing Wikipedia article written in Hebrew that seems to be far more detailed.
• The Talk page is not currently active, but the most recent edits include changes to external links and citations. There are also some conversations regarding translations, as the subject and most sources about her are not in English.
• This article is rated "Start-class" in the following WikiProjects: Biography, Germany (low-importance), France (low-importance), Jewish history (mid-importance), Women writers (mid-importance), and Women's History.
• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
• This subject has not yet been discussed in class yet, but was addressed in the assigned reading. I believe that her skills as a businesswoman were underplayed in this article and more importance should be given to her accomplishments.

Glückel of Hameln

Glückel of Hameln (also spelled Glückel, Glüeckel, or Glikl of Hamelin; also known as Glikl bas Judah Leib) (c.1646 – September 19, 1724) was a Jewish businesswoman and diarist. Written in her native tongue of Yiddish, the diaries were originally intended to be a living will for her children. Her memoirs provide an intimate portrait of German-Jewish life in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Glückel of Hameln
A fancy portrait of descendant Bertha Pappenheim wearing 17th-century costume in the persona of Glückel, painted by Leopold Pilichowski.
Born	Glikl bas Judah Leib c.1646 Hamburg, Holy Roman Empire
Died	September 19, 1724(1724-09-19) (aged 77–78) Metz, Lorraine, France
Other names	Glikl bas Judah Leib Glikl of Hameln Glückel Pinkerle
Occupation	Businesswoman
Years active	1689-1719
Known for	Memoirs
Spouses	Hayyim Segal of Hamelin ​ ​ (m. 1660; died 1689)​ Cerf Levy ​ ​ (m. 1700; died 1712)​
Parents	Loeb Pinkerle (father) Beila Bat Nathan Ellrich (mother)

Background and Context

Naming conventions

Glückel was a popular name is the Middle Ages. The name “Glück” is the diminutive German translation of the Hebrew name “Mazal,” meaning “fortune” or “good luck.” Mazal was exclusively used by Sefardic Jews, while Ashkenazi Jews used the German variations of Glück or Glueck, or the Yiddish verison of Glick. The ending "el" is a diminutive which indicates "little" or "little one," resulting in variations like Glückel, Glukel, Glukil, Glickel, and Glikel.

Despite being referred to by many different variations, the name she would have most likely used herself would be "Glikl bas Judah Leib," translated to Glikl daughter of Judah Leib, a stylization consistent with the Jewish naming traditions of her time.

Jewish women and business

• Gluckel as ordinary or extraordinary?
• Options for Jewish women to participate in economy

Jewish wedding customs

• Doweries, katubah, etc

Life and Death

Glückel of Hameln had a total of fourteen children with her first husband, Hayyim, thirteen of whom survived to adulthood: Zipporah (c.1661), Nathan (c.1663), Mata (c.1666), Mordechai (c.1670), Hannah (c.1672), Loeb (c.1673), Esther (c.1677), Joseph (c.1677), Hendelchen (c.1678), Samuel (c.1680), Freudchen (c.1684), Moses (c.1685), and Miriam (c.1686).

Glückel died on September 19, 1724, in Metz, France.

The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln

Content of the Diary

Book One

Book One provides much of the backstory of Glückel's early life. She explains that she began writing her memoirs following the death of her husband of nearly thirty years, Hayyim of Hamelin. She explicitly states that she does not wish to write a book of morals, as she believes that the Torah provides all of the necessary moral instructions. In this book, Glückel tells of her early life in Hamburg, where her father ensure that all of his children received a secular and religious education. (5-6) Glückel recalls experiences of anti-semitism and the expulsion of Jews to Altona around 1650. (7) She has memories of the so-called "Swedish Winter," when the Swedes went to war with the King of Denmark. (8) Glückel's father was the first German Jew to resettle in Hamburg. (9) In the first book, Glückel discusses the effect the plague had on the Jewish community (15), including the death of her grandmother (20). She mentions her mother, who made gold and silver lace. (18)

Book Two

Book Two begins with Glückel's betrothal at age twelve and resulting marriage two years later. (23) Glückel and Hayyim were married in Hamelin and moved in with his parents. She remembers her in-laws fondling (24-25) and shares her impressions of Hamlen. (25)

Book Three

Glückel begins showing signs of both her business acumen in Book Three, remarking that her husband took advice from her and no one else (40) and that he did nothing in business without her knowledge (66). This book tells of the commotion caused by the false prophet Sabbati Zevi (45) and how it impacted her family specifically. The plague continues, and Glückel tells of the difficulty of conducting trade (65) and receiving mail (57), as well as the strange illness and remarkable recovery of her daughter Zipporah, who she refers to as the "Virgin of Peinholz" (56). Glückel mentions her drafting of a business contract when her husband took ill on a trading trip to Leipzip (66). Over the course of this book, Glückel gives birth to daughters Mata and Hannah (87).

Book Four

Glückel has another child in this volume; a son, named Mordecai. (93) Glückel gives more details of her social and economic chapter in this book, mentioning her servant "Elegant Sam," who had replaced a "Clumsy Sam." (93). Zipporaph follows her mother's footsteps and is also engaged at age twelve, and the towns people place bets on her marriage (95). Glückel tells of her embarrassment when it is discovered that the marriage contract, or kittubah, was not written. (98) This is the first of many weddings that are described in the memoirs. Glückel mentions the attendance of nobility as well as the performance of the "Dance of Death." (99) Glückel suffers the loss of her sister Hendel, who is buried in Emmerich. (100) She mentions the dangers of sailing from Wangeroog to Hamburg due to pirateers. (104) By this time, her son Nathan is fifteen and begins being involved in business. (110) Glückel and Hayyiam have another daughter, Esther. (110) This book details many economic woes, including the loss of 11,000 Reichthalers in one year. (117) In a stroke of bittersweet luck, Glückel's father dies after suffering from gout, a story she relates in greater detail later, but she gives birth to her son Loeb after sitting shiva. (120) Glückel details the will distribution (121), her husband's mourning (131), as well as the treatment of her mother by her sons-in-law (123). Glückel mentions her mothers age at widowhood (fourty-four) and that she never remarried (125). Glückel also mentions other female-authored wills, indicating that perhaps her memoirs are not an anomaly. (124) She gives her impressions on the war between the King of France, Holland, and the Kaiser (125). Hayyim again falls ill on a business trip, this time in Halberstadt. (127) Glückel's father-in-law had died three years before writing this book, and she tells a story about her daughter Hannah's experience with a ghostly presence the night before he died. (130) She writes of her husband's year of mourning (131). Her mother-in-law died two years later at eighty-two, and she was buried next to her husband. (131) She celebrates her daughter Esther (132) and son Nathan (135) both becoming engaged, but she also mourns losing a child in infancy (142). She then begins a period of giving birth every two years, starting with daughter Hendele; Samuel, Moses, Freudchen, and Miriam followed. (142) The book ends with the death of Hayyim, the "crown of [her] head" (143), in 1689. She laments being left with eight unmarried children and mentions that the four married children also still need help (143).

Book Five

Book Five deals extensively with the sickness and eventual death of Hayyim. On January 11, 1689, he fell on a sharp stone, agitating his already "badly twisted bowels" (147). Initially refusing to call for a doctor for want of privacy, he eventually calls for Abraham Lopez, a physician and chirurgeon-barber. (148) Glückel offers her body to her husband, but he refuses because she is "unclean" due to menstruation (150). He dies on Shabbat, reciting a prayer: "Hear O'Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!" (152) He was buried January 16, 1689 and a week of mourning commenced (152). Glückel's grief is described in detail as she feels forgotten about by the community. (154) He died 20,000 Reichthalers in debt (155), but they were cleared within a year. (158) Life begins returning to normal, as Glückel took over control of the business and family. She describes difficulty with her son Loeb's marriage plans (159) as well as business decisions (164). As Loeb falls deep into debt after going into business in Berlin, she begins to see the city as cursed (169). This feeling is intensified after her daughter Hendele falls sick and dies there, only seventeen weeks after getting married (177). She tells of her son Joseph being swindled by a trusted Talmud teacher at age fourteen. (183) Glückel tells the store of the murders of Abraham Metz and Aaron ben Moses, which illustrates the relationships between Jews and Gentiles in Hamburg. (187)

Book Six

Book Six opens with a sense of deep regret, as Glückel describes her second marriage, the "change in life [she] sought to avoid for fourteen years" (222). She accepts that her second marriage is a punishment for her sins of not committing herself to God following the death of Hayyim. (222) She tells of her secret betrothal to Hirz Levy, a widower from Metz, which occurred in June 1699. (226) She relates the story of King Jedijah from Araby to illustration how good intentions (wanting to protecter her children by marrying) can often go wrong (230). Although she enters the marriage being assured that her new husband was a wise businessman who offerred her "nothing bur abundance" (243), she was hesitant. She details difficulties with both her new step-children and new staff of two manservants, two maids, and "numerous lackeys" (244). Glückel is distraught when she learns Loeb died and relates her grief with the story of King David and his son Absalom (252). The book closes with a plea for God's forgiveness. (253)

Book Seven

The final book "contains both pleasures and pains, as does the world itself." (254) In this book, her son Samuel and her second husband die. His business was in ruin, and she was unable to recover even her initial dowry (255). She recalls living in the home of Jacob Marburg, with "neither hearth nor chimney" (264). Being old and ill, she began experiencing difficulty getting up the twenty-two stairs to her room. (264) Despite protests, she eventually gives in to her son-in-law Moses's demands of moving in with him and his wife. (165) In 1715, she moved in with her daughter and experienced a changing Metz. (266)

Themes of the Memoir

Jewish life and customs; marriage as business; distrust of doctors; faith in God for punishment and reward.

Historical References in the Memoir

• Dano-Swedish War (1658–60)
• The Plague
• Expulsion of the Jews from Hamburg
• Vilna Jews expulsion from Poland
• Sabbati Zevi

Biblical References in the Memoir

• King David and Absalom

History of the Memoirs

Glückel began writing her memoirs after her first husband's death in 1691, ultimately finishing the seven books in 1719. The original manuscript was lost, but a copy made by Glückel's son Moses survived and was used to create the first printed edition entitled Zikhroynes (Yiddish for "Memoirs"), edited by David Kaufmann and published in 1896.

Translations

The first German translation of the Memoirs was completed by one of Glückel's great-granddaughters, Bertha Pappenheim, and was published in 1910. In 1913, an alternate abridged German translation by Alfred Feilchenfeld was published and, due to its immense popularity, went into its fourth edition by 1923. Feilchenfeld's treatment became the basis of the first English translation by Marvin Lowenthal, published in 1932 and reissued in 1960 and 1977. In 1962, Beth-Zion Abrahams offered a more accurate English translation of the original Kaufmann edition. An abridged Hebrew translation based on the Feilchenfeld edition was published by A. Z. Rabinowitz in Tel Aviv in 1930. Joseph Berenfeld completed a full translation into modern Yiddish in 1967.

Adaptations

COPIED FROM WIKI:

The manuscript of Glückel's diaries, handwritten in Western Yiddish, was kept by her children and grandchildren. It was created by Glückel's son Moshe Hamel who copied her original manuscript, and the copy was inherited first by Moshe's son Chayim Hamel (d. 1788) and then by members of the next generation, Yosef Hamel and Chayim Hamel Segal of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). The manuscript was deposited in the Bavarian State Library in the second half of the 19th century. [Comments by David Kaufman, quoted by Rabinovitz 1929]

The Bavarian State Library manuscript was published as a book in 1892 by David Kaufman in Pressburg (Bratislava) under the name "Zikhroynes Glikl Hamel" (Yiddished Hebrew: the Memoirs of Glikl Hamel). Bertha Pappenheim, one of her descendants, translated the Memoirs into German and published them in Vienna in 1910. An abridged translation into German with commentary by Alfred Feilchenfeld appeared in 1913, and went through four print runs by 1922/23. The first Hebrew translation was published in 1929 by Rabinovitz, who had also added detailed references for the many quotes often used by Glückel.

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."

Quotes

*"A woman's whims are not pure folly and need not always be despised." (140)

Legacy

The permanent exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin) featured Glückel of Hameln from 2001 to 2017. "Two Millennia of German-Jewish History" was broken down into fourteen periods spanning from the Middle Ages to the present, with Glückel representing the Baroque period. The exhibit has been closed since 2017 for a complete redesign and is expected to re-open in 2019.

Her memoirs have been adapted several times. Margoa Winston published "Glückel Von Hameln a Dramatization of Her Autobiography" in 1941. Adrienne Cooper and Frank London of the Great Small Works theater troupe brought the memoirs to the stage in the early 2000s. The production combined puppetry with European storytelling traditions and was performed in both Yiddish and English.

In 2016, a street in Hamburg was named after Glückel. Glückel-von-Hameln-Straße is located in the borough of Altona, the same place that her family and all other Hamburg Jews were exiled to in 1648.

Bibliography

• Adler, H. G. The Jews in Germany: From the Enlightenment to National Socialism. University of Notre Dame Press, 1969.
• Cahnman, Werner J. German Jewry: Its History and Sociology. Edited by Joseph Maier, Judith Marcus, and Zoltán Tarr. Transaction Publishers, 1989.
• Davis, Natalie Zemon. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-century Lives. Harvard University Press, 2003.
• Gold, Doris B., and Lisa Stein. From the Wise Women of Israel: Folklore and Memoirs. Biblio Press, 1995.
• Gorr, Shmuel. Jewish Personal Names: Their Origin, Derivation, and Diminutive Forms. Edited by Chaim Freedman. Avotaynu, 1992.
• Hertz, Deborah. Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin. Syracuse Univ. Press, 2005.
• Hertz, Deborah. How Jews Became German. Yale UP, 2006.
• Kaganoff, Benzion C. A Dictionary of Jewish Names and Their History. Jason Aronson, 1996.
• Kaplan, Marion A. Jewish Daily Life in Germany: 1618-1945. Oxford Univ. Press, 2011.
• Kirsch, Adam. The People and the Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature. W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
• Moseley, Marcus. Being for Myself Alone: Origins of Jewish Autobiography. Stanford University Press, 2006.
• Randall, Ronne, and Mandy Ross, eds. For Generations: Jewish Motherhood. Nottingham: Five Leaves in Association with European Jewish Publication Society, 2005.
• Schechter, Solomon. Studies in Judaism. Second Series. Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938.
• Taitz, Emily. Remarkable Jewish Women: Rebels, Rabbis, and Other Women from Biblical Times to Present. Biblio Press, 2002.
• Glueckel, and Beth-Zion Abrahams. The Life of Glückel of Hameln: A Memoir. Access and Diversity, Crane Library, University of British Columbia, 2014.
• Lowenthal, Martin, trans. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln. Random House, 1989.
• Umansky, Ellen M. Four Centuries of Jewish Womens Spirituality: A Sourcebook. Beacon Press, 1992.
• Wiesner, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Winston, Margoa. Glückel Von Hameln a Dramatization of Her Autobiography. Behrmans Jewish Book House, 1941.
• Wunder, Heide. He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany. Harvard University Press, 1998.