Gluckel of Hameln’s memoirs
Gluckel of Hameln was a Jewish woman from Hamburg who lived in the seventeenth century. She wrote her lengthy memoirs in Yiddish. Her memoir is regarded to be one of the most important documents for European Jewish history written by a Jewish woman. The diary or the memoirs are addressed to her fourteen children. In 1690, Gluckel became a widow after the death of her husband and the memoirs were a therapeutic way to heal her wounded heart. The diary was used to take away her sad thoughts and to get her through her sadness. She states “I am not writing this book in order to preach to you, but, as I have already said, to drive away the melancholy that comes with the long nights …”However, in her diary she informs her children that the diary was not a book of morals but one to include them in her life experiences, memories and life. In her memoirs, Gluckel explains all what happened in her life. She also explains the way she directed the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she conducted her trade business with the intention of promoting the welfare of her family.
Gluckel's diary gives the reader the understanding of the typical life of what a widowed Jewish woman faced in a Christian dominated Germany. It’s a vivid description of what happened to the Jews of her time accounting the personal and public perspective in the 17th and 18th century. In her diary she reveals the fear she lived with, as a mother would have over her children. She also explains the relationship she experienced from her first and second husband and the responsibilities she faced as a trader.
Gluckel’s memoir are arranged to describe her life in seven books. The first four books describe her mourning of her fir...
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...le to live as full citizens in the city and many were placed in subordinate status.
The memoir of Gluckel of Hameln is an irreplaceable source of information for historians because it gives the understanding of Jewish life. The Jews faced lots of challenges and the memoirs reveal life and death matters that constituted the Jewish life. These memoirs help the reader to learn the difficulties faced everyday life by the Jews at the time. However, the Jewish people preserved their Jewish self-identity. The memoir is a rich source for the understanding of social and cultural history of the 17th century Europe. Using her spirituality, Gluckel used her memoirs to instruct her children on the importance of values, the family and religious ties, and maintaining their Jewish identity.
Works Cited
Glueckel. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln. New York: Schocken, 1977. Print.
Gluckel of Hameln was a seventeenth century Jewish woman from Hamburg who wrote a lengthy memoir in Yiddish. While she was not a famous person in her time, Gluckel's memoir has been regarded as one of the most important documents for European Jewish history, of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and the earliest autobiography written by a Jewish woman. Beginning in 1690, Gluckel's diary of a German Jewish widow is addressed to her fourteen children, and is written as an undertaking as a kind of therapy after her husband's death, to get her through her sadness and, "melancholy thoughts." She writes to her children reassuring them that she is not writing these memoirs as a book of morals, but rather the memoir is an attempt to include her children into her experiences, memories and life. In her memoir she explains how she directed the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she engaged in trade, while promoting the welfare of her large family.
Flannery O’Connor was born on March 25, 1925 in Georgia. She was the only child to her parents, Edward and Regina O’Connor. Two years away from Flannery’s adulthood , her father passed away due to a rare disease, lupus. At the time of her father’s death O’Connor was in Milledgeville, Ga. It can be inferred that she was able to cope up with her father’s death very soon as she didn’t speak of his death much and also resumed to be an active part of her high school’s extra-curricular activities such as painting, English club and also band. A year after her father’s demise she graduated from high school and enrolled herself in Georgia State College to do major in English and sociology. It was during this period that she adapted the name ‘Flannery’. After getting bachelor degree from college she relocated to Iowa City where she attended University of Iowa and also applied for a job as teacher within the campus of her university. In the year of 1947, she eventually obtained her Masters degree in the field of Fine Arts. In spite of the fact that she obtained her Masters degree in 1947, her first work, “The Geranium” was published a year before that and it was just the dawn of her fame. It was merely an origination of the classics that followed later on. Lupus was genetically acquired by O’Connor from her father. Things were going well until end of 1950 in which she was struck by a severe lupus attack. O’Connor was determined about her writing and thus , even such a huge attack didn’t divert her attention off her passion of writing. There was no looking back for her as she kept on publishing her works. In point of fact , it was only after her attack, she produc...
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