Read Professor Rachel Greenblatt's Article, published in 'In Geveb A Journal of Yiddish Studies'

Senior Lecturer Rachel L. Greenblatt's article centers around Glikl bas Judah Leib, known since the late nine­teenth cen­tu­ry as Glück­el of Hameln, who has long been celebrated as a distinctive voice in the history of Ashkenazi Jews. Glikl stands out as the only Jewish woman— one of the few early modern Jews—to have authored a full-length autobiography. Her written work stands out in this regard, and for its unmatched quality of narrative style. At the same time, char­ac­ter­iz­ing Glikl as an ​"extra­or­di­nary" woman could pass as a distortion of history. Many women in Glikl's cir­cles — the upper, eco­nom­ic and social stra­ta of late sev­en­teenth- and ear­ly eigh­teen-cen­tu­ry Ger­man Jew­ry — read, wrote, con­duct­ed busi­ness, and raised fam­i­lies.

Professor Greenblatt's arti­cle offers an exploration of how var­i­ous ele­ments of both the form and con­tent of Glikl's writ­ing can be found in the work of her con­tem­po­raries.

"In the pages that follow, I compare Glikl's writing to much shorter texts by two female contemporaries, in search of shared literary territory on the one hand and the unique creative impulse on the other. This double-sided approach constitutes an attempt to cast aside contemporary lenses in order to more fully and accurately assess the variety of women's roles in early modern Ashkenaz."

Click here to view a pdf ver­sion of Professor Greenblatt's arti­cle. Files are also avail­able for the sources in the orig­i­nal and in Eng­lish trans­la­tion.