This book came to me highly recommended by Ethan who was trying to motivate me in the higher ways of thinking. It’s a diary of a religious jewish woman (Gluckel is properly pronounced Glickel) from the 1600’s. When I heard about it was shocked that I’ve never heard about it before. in fact we have next to nothing from that entire period in time. But to have a DIARY from a WOMAN from the 1600’s something that greatly intruiged me.
Most people I speak to have never even heard of the book. It doesn’t have the popularity that Anne Frank’s book has since it was kept in secret by the family who finally released it in 1976. But i think more and more people should familiarize themselves with this diary.
In the course of the book, you will learn that she was from one of the wealthier familes in Hameln. Because she lived in wealth and dealt alot with business, you won’t turn one page without her mentioning money. She writes about problems with shidduchim, pogroms, life, death, and even episodes with Shabbsai Tzvi!
Read this book and get a taste of true Jewish History.
nice new layout.
“Ethan who was trying to motivate me in the higher ways of thinking” – did it work?
I’m intrigued by this book as well – i will definitely pick it up and read it. i’m looking at her picture and i’m just amused at how her features are typically jewish and that i’ve seen some women in this century that have a similiar look.
The diary is a known forgery.
i took a course on Jewish Daily Life in Early Modern Europe that looked into Glickl in-depth. It is not a “known forgery”, ad a commenter above suggests, but there are some issues– you have to take personal journals with a grain of salt as primary sources, esp. one like Glick’s, which was written in a literary style and explicity states it was meant to be handed down to future generations as a book of moral instructions.
Nonetheless, it is a fascinating book. I love it, and I recommend it very much.