Glückel of Hameln ( Glikl bas Reb Yehude Leyb Hamil; also spelled Glückel, Glüeckel, Glickl Hamel or Glikl of Hamelin; also known as Glikl bas Judah Leib) ( – September 19, 1724) was a German Jewish businesswoman and diarist. Written in her native tongue of Western Yiddish over the course of thirty years, her memoirs were originally intended to be an ethical will for her children and future descendants.Liptzin, Sol, A History of Yiddish Literature, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY, 1972. . pp.14-15. Glückel's diaries are the only known pre-modern Yiddish memoirs written by a woman. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln provide an intimate portrait of German-Jewish life between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and have become an important source for historians, philologists, sociologists, literary critics, and linguists.
Background
Naming conventions Glückel was a popular name in the Middle Ages. The name “Glückel” is diminutive of "Glück," the German translation of the Hebrew name “Mazal,” meaning “good fortune.” Mazal was exclusively used by Sephardic Jews, while Ashkenazi Jews used either the German variations of "Glück" and "Glueck" or the Yiddish version "Glick." The ending "el" is a diminutive which indicates "little" or "little one" and was used in the Yiddish and German variations of Glückel, Glukel, Glukil, Glickel, and Glikel. The pseudo-aristocratic variation "Glückel von Hameln" was used by the editor of the memoir's first publication in Yiddish.
Despite being referred to by many different variations, her preferred name would have most likely have been "Glikl bas Judah Leib," meaning "Glikl daughter of Judah Leib," in keeping with Jewish naming traditions of her time.
Life and death Glückel was born into a wealthy family in the city of Hamburg in 1646 or 1647, one of six children born to Judah Joseph Leib and his second wife Beila. She had one brother, Wolf, and four sisters: Rebekah, Elkel, Hendele, and Mate. Her father was a successful diamond trader and parnas, a leader in the Jewish community; her mother was also involved in business. In 1649, when Glückel was less than three years old, her family and the rest of Hamburg's Ashkenazic Jewish community was expelled to Altona. Her father had been so respected in Hamburg that he was the first German Jew permitted to return. Glückel's father ensured that all of his children were both pious and well-educated, including his daughters. Although she was unable to study the Torah, Glückel received a formal education in a Cheder, the traditional Jewish primary school, where she learned Hebrew and the basics of Judaism.
When she was twelve years old, Glückel was betrothed to Hayyim of Hameln, whom she married in 1660 at the age of fourteen. After the marriage, the couple lived in the groom's parents’ home in Hameln. A year after their marriage, the couple moved in with Glückel's parents in Hamburg, where Hayyim began dealing in gold and became an affluent businessman. A year after that, they became parents for the first time. Glückel assisted her husband in trading seed pearls, eventually taking over the family business when he died in 1689. She was one of few women who traveled by themselves to conduct trade at European markets and fairs. In addition to her business dealings, Glückel also maintained an extremely active social life which often required extensive travel. Her memoirs tell of travels to cities as varied as Amsterdam, Bamberg, Danzig, Hanover, Hildesheim, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Berlin, Vienna, Metz, and Paris.
Glückel and Hayyim had a total of fourteen children, one of whom died as a 2-week old infant, another of whom died as a three-year old. The names of the 13 children to live beyond infancy are as follows: 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 took great pride in the fact that many of her children were married into some of the most prominent Jewish families of Europe.
In 1700, eleven years after Hayyim's death, Glückel remarried. Although she had rejected a number of proposals, she finally acquiesced as she believed that remarrying would ultimately benefit her children by protecting their future. Her second husband was Cerf Levy, a successful banker and parnas from Metz. Two years after their marriage, Levy failed financially, losing not only his own fortune but hers as well. Still deep in the throes of bankruptcy, Levy died in 1712, leaving Glückel a widow for the second time. Ever fearful of becoming a burden to her children, Glückel lived alone until falling too ill to care for herself in 1715. At the age of seventy, after much pleading from her children, she moved in with her daughter Esther and her son-in-law Moses.
Glückel died from natural causes on September 19, 1724, in Metz.
The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln History of the memoirs In 1691, two years after the death of her beloved husband, Glückel began writing her memoirs in an attempt to comfort herself during her immense grief. At the time she was a 46-year-old widow with twelve children, eight of whom remained unmarried. She initially stopped writing the diaries in 1699, shortly before her second marriage to Cerf Levy, but resumed in 1715 while she was living with her daughter following her second husband's death. Glückel completed the seventh and final book in 1719.
Glückel was born two years before the end of the Thirty Years' War. She lived through, and subsequently wrote about, many other notable historical events, including but not limited to Charles X Gustav of Sweden's war on Denmark, the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648, the expulsion of the Jewish population of Hamburg to Altona, the scandal of the "Messianic pretender" Sabbatai Zevi, the Franco-Dutch War, and the War of the Spanish Succession. Glückel's stories reveal much about the often frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Glückel's diaries, a rare account of an ordinary woman, offer a glimpse into the day-to-day life of Jewish inhabitants in northern Germany during the 17th century. The diaries are the sole pre-modern diary written by a woman in Yiddish. Glückel tells of how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children through marriage arrangements, engaged in business travel and trade, and generally spent her life promoting the welfare of her large family. Glückel wrote extensively about both her own and her first husband's families because she wanted her children to be aware of their lineage. She was explicit that the works were to be preserved for future generations, fearing that her children's children or grandchildren would one day know nothing of their family history.
The memoirs amalgamate several Jewish literary traditions: the Tsava'ah, or ethical will; the tkhines, or women's prayer books; Musar literature, or books of moral instruction; the Mayse bukh, or Yiddish storybook; and the "Family Scroll."
Book One The opening pages of Glückel's book include details of her reasons for writing, as well as the underlying beliefs that will come to define her entire narrative. She explains that she began writing her memoirs following the death of her husband of nearly thirty years, Hayyim of Hameln. She explicitly states that she does not wish to write a book of morals for her children to follow; she believes that the Torah provides all of the necessary instructions and thus should be studied diligently. She also states that she intends to complete the memoirs as a series of "seven little books."
Book One provides much of the backstory of Glückel's life. In this book, Glückel tells of her childhood in Hamburg. Though the second chapter begins with her birth, there is almost no reference to her childhood and upbringing except to mention that her father ensured that all of his children, male and female, received both secular and religious education. She mentions that her mother worked making gold and silver lace. Glückel recalls experiences of anti-semitism and how her community was severely impacted by the expulsion of Jews to Altona around 1650. Glückel illustrates her family's importance in the community by noting that her father was the first German Jew allowed to resettle in Hamburg. She has memories of the so-called "Swedish Winter" when the Swedes went to war with the King of Denmark, a monarch who she remembered as great man and friend to the Jews. Glückel also tells of the devastating effect that the plague had on Hamburg's Jewish community, including the death of her grandmother.
Glückel reveals that her father had been a widower when he married her mother. She remembers the circumstances of her sister Hendele's engagement to the son of Reb Gumpel of Cleves, in which Hendele received 1,800 Reichsthalers as her dowry, the most anyone had ever been dowered in Hamburg. Glückel recalls that the match been the most important in all of Germany and that "the whole world admired its excellence and the size of the dowry."
Book Two Book Two is one of the shortest of the seven books, and it is also the most joyful. This book begins with Glückel's betrothal to Hayyim of Hameln at age twelve and their marriage two years later; the relationship was arranged by her father. After Glückel and Hayyim were married in Hameln, they moved in with his parents where she was "alone with strangers in a strange world." She recalls her first impressions of Hameln being "a dull shabby hole" and "back-country town where lived only two Jews." She was ultimately not discouraged by her new surroundings, however, because of how well she was treated by her in-laws, especially her father-in-law, Joseph Hameln.
She spends most of the second book giving details about Hayyim's family. She tells the story of Hayyim's eldest brother, Moses, who was shot and killed while being robbed on the way to his own wedding. Joseph's second son, Abraham, was a brilliant Talmud scholar who faced many hardships in his life, including difficulties conceiving without what was rumored to be mystical intervention. Hayyim had a sister named Yenta, who experienced great personal turmoil after marrying the son of the wealthy Sussmann Gans of Minden-on-the-Weser. The fourth child of the family, Samuel, studied in Poland and married the daughter of the prominent Rabbi Sholem of Lemberg. Glückel never met the fifth child, Isaac, who died at age fifty in Frankfort-on-the-Main. Glückel writes very little about Hayyim's sister Esther, stating instead that "all the world knows the excellent woman she was." The seventh child, Loeb, lived in Bonn. He died young "but in riches and honor." Hannah was the eighth child who, like Loeb, also died very young; she, however, was without any wealth. Hayyim was the ninth child, referred to in this book as "your faithful father." He is not discussed at length in the chapter, however, as Glückel advises that the details will be found in the coming pages instead.
Book Three