Few memoirs by early modern women exist, quite simply because few had the time, ability or volition to write them. Only one memoir from this time period by a Jewish woman is extant: the memoir of the remarkable Glückel of Hameln, who lived from 1646 to 1724. Her life reflected the conditions in which Jews existed in her world: the whims of history led to exile, return, and a curious mix of prosperity and marginality. Throughout, she was sustained by a warm marriage that ended only with her husband's death, by her many children, and by her deep piety. Her legacy endures in the poetry of her descendant, the famous poet Heinrich Heine, and in a modern dramatization of her life that has been performed worldwide.
- One of the historians who best "knows" Glückel of Hameln is Natalie Zemon Davis, who analyzed this Jewish memoirist in Women on the Margins (1995). Read parts of Davis's analysis and some brief excerpts from the memoirs at
http://www.jhom.com/personalities/gluckel/suffering.htm
- Jews suffered frequently from the attacks and persecution of rabid anti-Semites, who accused them, falsely, of such acts as killing Christian children and poisoning wells. See an alleged depiction of the latter at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/7221/antisemitism.htm
- Photos of modern Hameln, known in legend as the home of the famous Pied Piper, show its medieval origins and may be viewed at
http://www.bmksound.de/firmen/bjh/gb/bjh108.htm
