Glikl bas Judah Leib

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Glikl bas Judah Leib ( Hebrew גליקל בת יהודה לייב(= Glikl, daughter of Judah Leib), born probably 1647 in Hamburg ; died on September 19, 1724 in Metz ), (falsely) also known as Glückel von Hameln , was a German merchant who was the first woman in Germany to write an important autobiography that has survived .

Live and act

Family of origin and childhood

Glikl came from an Ashkenazi family who lived in wealthy circumstances in Hamburg. After being expelled from Detmold, her grandfather Nathan settled in Altona , where Count Ernst von Holstein-Pinneberg had issued religious freedom at the beginning of the 17th century in order to lure merchants into the up-and-coming trading center, a policy adopted after the Counts of Schauenburg had died out and Holstein in 1640 was continued by the Danish King Christian IV and his successors.

Glikl's father was Judah Joseph ben Nathan (~ 1595 - January 6, 1670), also called Leib or Löb Pinkerle or Staden. The nickname "body" refers to the fact that he was one of the Levites , and "Staden" probably refers to Stade as the place of birth. He was a successful, well-respected diamond dealer and head of the Jewish community in Altona. He had no children from his first marriage. Her mother, the businesswoman Beila bas Nathan from Ellrich, was his second wife and much younger than him. As a widow, she did not remarry and died in 1704, more than 30 years after her husband. Both are buried in the Jewish cemetery in Altona, as are several family members. At least one son, the Torah scholar Avraham Binjamin Wolf, and four daughters were born in the marriage , of whom Glikl was probably the eldest.

The family had moved to Hamburg because of the better business opportunities. Hamburg had survived the Thirty Years' War almost unscathed and was a flourishing trading city in which Sephardic or Portuguese Jews had lived with the support of the Senate since the 16th century . Glikl's family belonged to the Ashkenazi or German Jews, who until 1712 were legally worse off than the Sephardi and did not have their own synagogue in the city. Glikl's youth was overshadowed by the latent hatred of the Jewish community that always existed at the time. As a toddler, she experienced the expulsion from Hamburg in 1649 of those German Jews who - like her parents, apparently - had settled in the city without special permission from the Hamburg council. Her family then lived again in neighboring Altona for a while. In 1657/58 the Altona Jews fled to Hamburg from the Swedish attack on Altona . Glikl's father was the first to get official permission to settle in Hamburg after returning to the city.

First marriage

As was customary in Jewish families, she married very young: at the age of twelve, Glikl was engaged to Chaijm von Hameln or Goldschmidt in Hameln , a relative of the wealthy Hamburg merchant Chajim Fürst , and married two years later before her 14th birthday. Her husband, who was only a few years older, came from “one of the oldest and most important Jewish families in Northern Germany”. Glikl's youngest sister Riwka (~ 1662–1727) married Samuel Löb, a nephew of Chaijm, in 1676 and also lived with him in Hamburg.

After a year in the house of the in-laws, the young couple moved to Hamburg, "because Hameln was not a place of commerce". At first they lived with their parents, while Chaijm gained his first experience as a businessman. The two had a happy, partnership-based marriage. Glikl had fourteen children, twelve of whom reached adulthood and married themselves. Their first child was born a few days before their mother gave birth to her little sister, Rivka. Chaijm started a pearl and jewelery trade that required him to travel a lot. Glikl, who was otherwise responsible for redeeming the pledges of merchants, had to run the business in Hamburg on her own in the meantime.

During the plague that struck Hamburg in 1664, she temporarily moved to live with her in-laws in Hameln. In 1666 she experienced the general euphoria surrounding the alleged messiah Shabbtai Zvi . It is the only time that she reports of contacts with the Sephardi, through whose network the news of the Messiah spread and whose enthusiasm also infected the Ashkenazi. Quite a few sold their belongings in order to embark on the cruise to the Holy Land from Hamburg. Glikl's father-in-law also sold his house in Hameln and sent some travel boxes to his son in Hamburg and moved to Hildesheim to wait for the right time to move there. However, in the same year, Shabbtai Zvi converted to Islam and thus ended the hope for the redemption of Israel and the construction of the new temple in Jerusalem . For Glikl, this disappointment coincided with the death of her three-year-old daughter Mate. The in-laws stayed in Hildesheim, where Glikl and her husband visited her a few years later together with their then youngest son, whom she was still breastfeeding.

Two years later, around 1674, they brought their 13-year-old eldest daughter Zippora to Cleve for her wedding . Zippora's 18-year-old husband Kosmann was a son of the Brandenburg court Jew Elias Gomperz . In 1688 he founded a Hebrew printing company in Amsterdam, which in 1695 published a Haggadah that combined the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Seder traditions. There were already related relationships with the Gomperz family, as Glikl's sister Hendele was married to an uncle of Zippora's groom. A few years later, an older sister of Kosmann Gomperz became the mother-in-law of Glikl's younger daughter Esther. The later Brandenburg Elector and Prussian King Friedrich and the governor of Kleve, Moritz von Nassau , were also present at Zippora's splendid wedding . On the same trip, Glikl accompanied her husband to Amsterdam for the first time , which at that time was developing into the central trading point for jewelery.

Widow and self-employed clerk

Shortly after the birth of the youngest child, her husband Chaijm, now a respected and influential businessman, died on January 16, 1689 as a result of an accident and left her with a debt of 20,000 Reichstaler. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Altona. Glikl was on his own with eight unmarried children. Like other widows, such as her mother and grandmother, she continued to run her late husband's business. She was able to pay off the debt within a year. As a result, she became a very successful business woman who dealt with Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin and Metz and also frequently went on trips herself. In addition to trading in diamonds and pearls, she had stockings made in Hamburg. She and her eldest son Nathan, who lived in Hamburg with his wife Mirjam Ballin, regularly attended trade fairs in Braunschweig , Leipzig and Frankfurt .

She managed to increase the family's prosperity and to have all of her children married into wealthy and prominent Jewish families. With the marriage of her children, she also expanded and consolidated her own trading network. She supported her children and their spouses in setting up businesses by vouching for them with her good name. The son Sanwil (Samuel) was taken into his house by his future brother-in-law Samson Wertheimer and trained as a rabbi . However, he died before his only child was born. The daughter Hendele and the son Löb also died young, Hendele only a few weeks after their wedding. The other sons became successful merchants in Hamburg, Copenhagen and London. The youngest son Moses became court factor and in 1728 regional rabbi in Ansbach . In 1700, Glikl married the 60-year-old widower Hirsch (or Cerf) Isaac Levi Rabbin, a wealthy banker and community leader in Metz , in the hope of a comfortable old age , without having met him personally beforehand. However, his business breakdown plunged both of them into poverty. Glikl at least managed to save the dowry of the youngest, still unmarried daughter Mirjam. She resumed her independent trading activity so as not to have to rely solely on the support of the children. This was unusual, because normally during marriage the husband had sole control over the family property. Hirsch died in 1712. Nothing is known about Glikl's last years. She died in 1724 in the house of her daughter Esther, who was married to the wealthy community leader Moses Krumbach in Metz.

Autobiography

Glikl wrote down their lives for their children. Her memoirs, written in Yiddish , more precisely West Yiddish , which she began in 1691 to overcome the mourning for her first husband Chaijm, and continued with an interruption during her second marriage until 1719, are the first surviving and known autobiography of a woman in Germany and became an outstanding source of research into German-Jewish history and culture. The original manuscript has not survived, only a copy made by her son, Rabbi Moses Hameln-Goldschmidt in Baiersdorf .

content

Glikl's autobiography consists of eight books. The first book contains a moral and theological treatise in which Glikl calls on her children to be patient and trust God. This shows that she is a well-read, educated woman. In addition to Yiddish, she also spoke German, but also - unusually for a woman - had a knowledge of Hebrew , which can be demonstrated by the numerous Hebrew formulations and expressions in her text.

From the second book onwards, she tells her life in chronological order, but largely without any dates. She reports in detail about commercial transactions, including fraud, to which she, her husband and later her son Löb were exposed. In this context, many names are mentioned from which Glikl's network can be reconstructed. It included u. a. various court Jews such as Samuel Oppenheimer and several royal courts through them.

The family is not neglected in the reports. Reports are made of all births and the peculiarities that have occurred, also of the marriage of the children including the previous negotiations about financial issues, as well as of more distant family members. Close family ties existed with some of the most influential and wealthy Jewish families such as Goldschmidt, Gomperz and Oppenheimer.

Folk tales, anecdotes and philosophical considerations are repeatedly incorporated into the narrative sections, which they serve as an interpretation of their own experiences or as examples of moral advice to their children. These stories are mostly taken from Yiddish literature. Numerous prayers are also integrated into the text. Glikl shows herself to be a pious Jew who hoped for the Messiah even after the disappointment at Shabbtai Zvi.

Glikl's autobiography is a unique source on the life of the wealthy Jewish upper class in northern Germany in the 17th century. It describes domestic scenes, the upbringing of sons - not daughters -, business relationships and travel. The reproduced conversations with their husbands show that, despite the traditional differences between the sexes, a largely equal relationship in both private and business areas. Glikl repeatedly addresses the endangered situation of the Jews. She therefore speaks full of praise about the Danish royal family, whose privileges offered the Jews in Altona security.

Although Glikl was not directly involved in community affairs as a woman, she did share it.

Bertha Pappenheim in the costume of Glikl bas Judah Leib. Black and white reproduction of the painting by Pilichowski.

Afterlife

In 1910, before the First World War , Glikl's memoirs were translated from West Yiddish and published by Bertha Pappenheim , founder of the Jewish Women's Association in Germany . Bertha Pappenheim was a distant relative of Glikl bas Judah Leib - her mother was née Goldschmidt. In 1925 Leopold Pilichowski even had her painted in the costume of the Glikl.

“ Looking out over the worries of everyday life, which were almost overwhelming for Jews at the time, Glückel von Hameln appears to us as a clever, strong woman who, despite the heartache that she experienced, remained upright despite the severe blows of fate that she endured . " "

- Bertha Pappenheim

As an exceptionally extensive example of a Yiddish text that was not written with artistic or literary intentions, the autobiography also served as the basis for linguistic studies. The Jewish Museum Berlin dedicated a chapter to the Hamburg merchant in the permanent exhibition that ran until 2017 and used her life to show the difficulties facing Jewish emancipation , the integration of Jews into the nation.

Since 2016 there is a Glückel-von-Hameln-Straße in Hamburg-Altona-Nord . Alongside Bertha Pappenheim, Glikl's numerous descendants include Ludwig and Rudolf Bamberger and Heinrich Heine .

plant

  • Ms. hebr. Oct. 2 - Zikhronot
  • Ziḵrônôt mārat Gliql Hamil. (Yiddish), ed. by David Kaufmann . J. Kauffmann , Frankfurt am Main 1896 ( digitized ).
  • Glikl. Zikhronot 1691–1719 (Glikl. Memoires 1691–1719). Edited and translated from Yiddish by Chava Turniansky, The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History and The Ben-Zion Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 2006.

Translations:

Glikl's memoirs have also been published in Hebrew (1929 and 2006), French (1971), English (1932, 1962 and 1963), and Russian (2001) translations. Two fictional adaptations of the work were released in the USA: 1941 the play Glückel of Hameln by Margoa Winston (pseudonym for Minnie Hannah Winer Epstein), in 1967 the novel The adventures of Glückel of Hameln by Paul Sharon.

literature

  • Marianne Awerbuch : Before the Enlightenment: The Memories of the Glückel von Hameln - a Jewish woman's life at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. In: Willi Jasper , Joachim H. Knoll (Hrsg.): Prussia's sky spreads its stars ... Contributions to the cultural, political and intellectual history of the modern age. Festschrift for the 60th birthday of Julius H. Schoeps. Olms, Hildesheim 2002, pp. 163-181.
  • Natalie Zemon Davis : Right with God. The life of Glikl bas Judah Leib, called Glückel von Hameln. Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-8031-2485-9 .
  • Bernhard Gelderblom : The Jews of Hameln , Verlag Jörg Mittzkat, Holzminden 2011, pp. 26–29
  • Elvira Grözinger : Glückel von Hameln: businesswoman, mother and first Jewish-German author . New Synagogue Foundation Berlin, Centrum Judaicum , Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2004, ISBN 3-933471-61-3 (= Jewish miniatures. Volume 11).
  • Ingeborg Grolle : The Jewish merchant Glikl (1646–1724) (= Hamburgische Lebensbilder , 22). Edition Temmen, Bremen 2011. ISBN 978-3-8378-2017-1
  • Ulla Hinnenberg: The Kehille. History and stories of the Altona Jewish community. Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-871-66-043-4 .
  • Barbara Honigmann : Finding the face again. About writing, writers and Judaism. Essays Hanser, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-446-20681-7 (series: Edition Akzente).
  • Gabriele Jancke: The זכרונות (sichronot, memoirs) of the Jewish merchant Glückel of Hameln between autobiography, historiography and religious teaching text. Gender, Religion and Self in the Early Modern Age . In: Magdalene Heuser (Ed.): Autobiographies of women. Contributions to their history. (= Studies on German literary history e 85). Niemeyer, Tübingen 1996, ISBN 3-484-32085-0 , pp. 93-134.
  • Israela Klayman-Cohen: The Hebrew component in West Yiddish using the example of the memoirs of the Glückel of Hameln. Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-87548-076-7 .
  • Matthias Morgenstern : Out and about in symbolic spaces. Mobility in the late Jewish premodern using the example of the Glückel of Hameln. In: HP Jürgens, Thomas Weller (ed.): Religion and mobility. On the relationship between spatial mobility and religious identity formation in early modern Europe. Göttingen 2010, pp. 59–73.
  • Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg clerk Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1389-3 (pdf, accessed on September 17, 2019).
  • Nathanael Riemer: Some parallels of stories in Glikls of Hameln “Zikhroynes”. In: PaRDeS. Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies (2008) No. 14 , pp. 125–148.
  • Helga Altkrüger-Roller: Courageous women from Hameln & the surrounding area. Hameln 2012, ISBN 978-3-939492-39-9 , pp. 12-19.

Web links

Wikisource: Glikl bas Judah Leib  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Memoirs of the Glückel von Hameln  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This year of birth is given by Glikl in her autobiography. Several ages in her autobiography suggest that she was born a year or two earlier.
  2. ↑ Chava Turniansky, Gliḳl: zikhronot, 1691-1719 , Hebrew University, 2006. p. 31.
  3. ↑ David Kaufmann coined the name Glückel von Hameln . He followed the naming conventions of his time, according to which women took the surname of their husbands. During Glikl's lifetime, however, it was common for Jewish women to wear their father's name even after marriage ( Monika Richarz : Introduction. In: Dies .: Die Hamburger Kauffrau Glikl. Jewish Existence in the Early Modern Age. Hamburg 2001, p. 9).
  4. ↑ Tombstone of Josef Jehuda ben Natan .
  5. ↑ For example, on the tombstones of his wife and daughter Rivka .
  6. ↑ The sometimes readable form of the name Melrich (מעלריך) actually means "from Ellrich ", since the prefix -מ in Hebrew stands for "from / from". See: David Jacob Simonsen: A confrontation between Glückel Hameln's memoirs and the old Hamburg grave books . In: Monthly for the history and science of Judaism , vol. 49 (1905), no. 1, pp. 96-106; P. 100.
  7. ↑ Natalie Zemon Davis : Glikl bas Juda Leib - a Jewish, a European life . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 27-48; P. 29.
  8. ↑ Bella's tombstone asked Natan
  9. ^ Gravestone of Avraham Binjamin Wolf ben Josef Jehuda
  10. ↑ Monika Richarz : Introduction. In: This: The Hamburg clerk Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, p. 17.
  11. ↑ The Memoirs of the Glückel von Hameln. Translated by Bertha Pappenheim, p. 24.
  12. ↑ Rotraud Ries: Status and Lifestyle - Jewish families of the social upper class at the time of Glikl . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 280-306; P. 284.
  13. ^ Gravestone of Shmuel ben Jehuda Löb Bonn SeGaL
  14. ↑ The Memoirs of the Glückel von Hameln. Translated by Bertha Pappenheim, p. 60.
  15. ↑ Joshua Teplitsky, Messianische Hoffnung in Hamburg, 1666 , in: Hamburger Schlüsseldokumente zur German-Jewish history , February 13, 2018. doi : 10.23691 / jgo: article-195.de.v1 .
  16. ^ Yosef Kaplan: The Dutch Intersection: The Jews and the Netherlands in Modern History . 2008, p. 283.
  17. ↑ The Memoirs of the Glückel von Hameln. Translated by Bertha Pappenheim, p. 136f.
  18. ↑ Jonathan Israel : Trade fairs and trade routes - the memoirs of Glikl and the economic life of German Jews in the late 17th century . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 268-279; P. 271.
  19. ^ Gravestone of Chajim ben Josef Hamel (n) SeGaL
  20. ^ A b Michael Toch: Jewish women entrepreneurs in the 16th and 17th centuries: Economy and family structure . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 255-267; P. 257f.
  21. ↑ On the marriages of children see: Rotraud Ries: Status and Lifestyle - Jewish Families of the Social Upper Class at Glikl's Time . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 280-306; Pp. 285-287.
  22. ↑ Edelgard Abenstein: A Moving Life , deutschlandradiokultur.de on June 10, 2011 (accessed on February 27, 2019).
  23. ↑ Natalie Zemon Davis: Glikl bas Juda Leib - a Jewish, a European life . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 27-48; P. 33. 37.
  24. ↑ Elvira Grözinger: Glückel von Hameln at: Das Jüdische Hamburg
  25. ↑ Erika Timm : Glikl's language against its socio-historical and geographical background . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 49-67; P. 64.
  26. ↑ Natalie Zemon Davis: Glikl bas Juda Leib - a Jewish, a European life . In: Monika Richarz (ed.): The Hamburg merchant Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, pp. 27-48; P. 34.
  27. ↑ Monika Richarz : Introduction. In: This: The Hamburg clerk Glikl. Jewish existence in the early modern period. Hamburg 2001, p. 20.
  28. ^ Statistics Office North: Street and area index of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg
personal data
SURNAME Glikl bas Judah Leib
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Glückel von Hameln; Glikl; Gliql Hamil; Glikl asked Judah's body; Glikl bas Judah body; גליקל מהמלין
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German businesswoman
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: 1647
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1724
Place of death Metz