Abstract
Glikl bas Judah Leib, known since the late nineteenth century as Glückel of Hameln, has long been lauded as a unique voice in Ashkenazi history. Glikl is the only Jewish woman — and one of just a handful of early modern Jews — who has left us a book-length, autobiographical work. Her written work is unique in that respect, and in the quality of its narrative style. At the same time, characterizing Glikl as an “extraordinary” woman distorts the historical record. Many women in Glikl’s circles — the upper, though not highest, economic and social strata of late seventeenth- and early eighteen-century German Jewry — read, wrote, conducted business, and raised families. While no single work by another woman compares in terms of its size and scope, this article demonstrates that various elements of both the form and content of Glikl’s writing can be found in the work of her contemporaries. A surviving will left by Rivkah Sinzheim of Mannheim, Germany, provides points of comparison to Glikl’s memoirs in its sense of mortality and in addressing moral instructions to the author’s children. Beila bas Perlhefter wrote an introduction to a book composed by her husband, at her urging, in memory of seven of their children, that narrates a biblical tale likewise cited by Glikl. The two women use the story in similar ways in drawing out its moral message, but their stylistic choices vary greatly. The comparison highlights both a shared cultural vocabulary and Glikl’s unique artistry. Reading Glikl alongside these contemporaries thus complicates and deepens our understanding of gender roles in early modern Ashkenaz, and of this extraordinary woman.