The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln

Plot

Begun in 1690 this dairy of a 44 year old German Jewish widow, mother of 14 children, tells how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she engaged in trade, ran her own factory, and promoted the welfare of her large family. Her memoir, a rare account of an ordxinary woman, enlightens not just her children, for whom she wrote, but all psoterity about her life and community. Gluckel speaks to us with determination and humor from the 17th century. She tells of war, plague, pirates, soldiers, the hysteria of the false messiah Sabbtai Zevi, murder, bankruptcy, wedding feasts, deaths, in fact of all the human events that befell her during her lifetime. She writes in a matter of fact way of the frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived. Accepting this situation as given, she boldy and fearlessly promotes her business, her family, and her faith. This memoir is a document in the history of women and of life in the 17th century.