Glückel of Hameln (1646–1724)

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Glückel of Hameln (1646–1724)

Early modern Jewish entrepreneur whose personal memoirs provide historians with information regarding women, commerce, and Jewish family life in her time period. Name variations: Glueckel or Gluckel of Hameln; Glückel von Hameln or Gluckel von Hameln; Glikl of Hameln or Glikl Haml; Glikl bas Judah Leib. Pronunciation: GLOO-kel. Born in 1646 or 1647 in the port city of Hamburg, now in Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire; died in 1724 in Metz, now in France; daughter of a man named Loeb (a trader in jewels) and a mother who made lace before her marriage; provided with a Jewish and secular education as evidenced in her references to Torah and Talmud and her capacity for business; married Chayim of Hameln, in 1660 (died 1689); married Hirz Lévy of Metz, in 1700; children: (first marriage) 14, two of whom died before reaching adolescence, including a girl named after her maternal grandmother Mata (Mata lived about three years between 1666 and 1669); the children who survived were: Zipporah (b. around 1662); Nathan (b. around 1664); Hannah (b. around 1669); Loeb (b. around 1679); Joseph; Mordecai; Esther; Hendele; Samuel; Moses; Freudchen; and Miriam (b. just before her father's death in 1689).

Successfully managed her family's business affairs after the death of her first husband (1689–1700); started writing her memoirs as a testament for her children (1690); recorded her last entry, a reference to the eschatological vision of another woman (1719).

Through personal memoirs dedicated to the moral edification of her children, Glückel of Hameln tells us a great deal about the trials and triumphs of women and Jews in 17th-century Europe. She also demonstrates how an early modern woman could take advantage of the rare opportunities provided women to enter into commercial and financial transactions. To historians, her memoirs offer a rich treasure trove, providing a voice for those women who were not of the wealthiest or most aristocratic families of Europe.

Glückel of Hameln was born in the German city of Hamburg in 1646 or 1647. Her father Loeb traded in jewelry and other assorted items, providing a comfortable enough living for his family. By Glückel's own account, he also provided all his children, male and female, with both religious and secular educations. However, before Glückel turned three, all the Jews of Hamburg were expelled from this important trading port. They moved to the city of Altona, barely a quarter of an hour from Hamburg, but under the control of the king of Denmark, who was willing to provide sanctuary for the Jews.

The expulsion was no surprise, for throughout the medieval and early modern periods, the Jewish minority of Europe served as scapegoat for all sorts of general difficulties. In 1290, all Jews were expelled from England, to be followed by their expulsion from France in 1306, and their expulsion from Spain in 1492. Expulsion generally occurred in the light of increased anti-Semitic rumors in the general populace. One common lie was the claim that Jews required the blood of a slain Christian infant to perform magic rituals and demonic worship. Such rumors circulated among the general populace of places like Hamburg. In addition, very materialistic motivations could intertwine with religious prejudice, and in Hamburg itself, the prime motivation for periodically overtaxing or expelling the Jewish community was tied to the city's dependence on artisanal and commercial activity. Hamburg was a self-ruling German city-state, technically under the sovereignty of the weak Holy Roman emperor, but, in reality, the city's laws were made by the elite masters of its guilds. These merchant and craft guilds self-regulated prices, competition, and quality, much like today's trusts. To be a member, one had to swear certain Christian oaths, and, of course, Jews were therefore excluded from membership. This meant that any Jews engaging in artisanal production or trade to make a living, no matter how meager, were immediately labeled as unregulated, unfair outside competition. Standing in opposition to a free market, the town fathers of Hamburg expelled the Jews to rid themselves of unwanted price competition. In turn, the king of Denmark, like other protective nobles, accepted Jews to stimulate business activity and to create a completely loyal group of subjects who were totally dependent on him for protection and would, for the sake of sanctuary, provide forced loans and loyal bureaucrats.

The kernel of the Torah is, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
—Glückel of Hameln

Glückel describes the Altona Jewish community as consisting of about 40 families, her family being the second richest. Since there was more opportunity in Hamburg than Altona, many of the Hamburg refugees living in Altona purchased four-week passes from Hamburg's government, which allowed them to enter Hamburg for business. Such passes, together with transportation costs from Altona to Hamburg, necessarily increased prices charged by Jewish merchants and artisans. According to Glückel, those traveling between the two towns "often took their life in their hands because of the hatred for the Jews rife among the dockhands, soldiers and others of the meaner classes." When "a poor and needy wretch" tried to slip into Hamburg without a pass, "he was thrust into prison, and then it cost all of us money and trouble to get him out again." This was true since wealthier families, like Glückel's, often paid taxes and extorted fees on behalf of their poorer coreligionists, and Glückel reminisces in her memoirs that "great love and a close community spirit reigned" where the Hamburg exiles were concerned.

When she was ten, war broke out between Sweden and Denmark. At this point, the Hamburg refugees returned home to help defend their native city from Swedish attack. As a result, her father was able to negotiate resettlement for the refugees under a fairly light tax burden. The Hamburg Jews returned "at the mercy and favour of the Town Council," which could always be revoked under merchant or populist pressure. They were allowed no synagogues to worship in any event, and they had to hold prayer meetings in private homes, leading to attacks being made against them by members of the local Lutheran clergy.

Other aspects of Glückel's early life speak a great deal about the bonding of Jewish communities in the face of persecution—a bonding based on an extended definition of family. Glückel's father Loeb married twice, and Glückel was a child of his second marriage, to a poor fatherless woman who made a living by sewing gold and silver lace for textile merchants with her mother Mata. Glückel remembered that, for 17 years, her grandmother Mata was honored with a place at the head of the table, and engaged in such good works as tending sick Jewish refugees from Poland. Therefore, one aspect of Glückel's parents' marriage seems to have been the creation of a type of community-oriented care-taking unit, and when Glückel's sister Hendele was honorably married with a substantial dowry, her father provided amply for the poor and needy at the wedding feast.

Part of the early modern Jewish family's definition included a real partnership between husband and wife, but one in which the wife was ascribed the position of junior partner. In synagogues, women were separated from the men in specially partitioned balconies, and were excluded from attendance if menstruating and "unclean." From the very start of a woman's married life, numerous aspects of her future were arranged and managed by men. Glückel casually writes, "My father had me betrothed when I was a girl of barely twelve, and less than two years later I married." Marriages were more family alliances than they were love matches, but Glückel's marriage to Chayim of Hameln seems to have eventually developed the love, respect, and friendship that were hoped for as additional benefits. They spent their first year together in Hameln with Chayim's father Joseph, but, as business opportunities were slim, they moved to Hamburg to live with Glückel's parents at the end of that first year.

Though Glückel describes herself and her husband as inexperienced children, they immediately made some wise business choices. Noting that jewels were not then as fashionable as unadorned gold chains, Chayim bought gold jewelry from house to house and then resold the items to goldsmiths or "merchants about to be married" for a modest but steady profit. By Glückel's own account, though she was young, she became her husband's active business partner, traveling with him on business trips. In her own words, Chayim "took advice from no one else, and did nothing without our talking it over together."

In addition to learning her husband's business, Glückel had her first child, her daughter Zipporah , in her parents' house at about the age of 16. She would eventually have a total of 14 children, about one every two years. Twelve of them would survive childhood, though not all of them would live long lives in an age plagued by incurable diseases and other hazards. Despite admitting that her first pregnancy was difficult and that she was, in fact, "a mere child" herself, Glückel clearly appears to have been quite happy in her first marriage. She describes her husband as an ideal Jew, who toiled all day at his business, but who still fasted when required and studied Torah every day. In fact, he prospered so that after only one year in her parents' home, Chayim and Glückel moved to their own rented house with a manservant and a maid. Abraham Cantor, their first manservant, later went on to become a successful merchant in Copenhagen, having been advanced money by Chayim and Glückel.

When Zipporah was two, Glückel had her first son, Nathan, in this home, and the family business continued to thrive, with Chayim dealing in large quantities of goods at various commercial fairs. Glückel even writes that attempts were unsuccessfully made to marry Nathan to the daughter of Samuel Oppenheimer (1635?–1703), one of the most powerful Jews in Europe. A bureaucrat and banker, Oppenheimer managed provisioning for the Austrian Habsburg Holy Roman emperor in his wars with the French and Turks. When Oppenheimer died, the Austrian government owed him millions which were never repaid. Of course, many tried to become in-laws to Oppenheimer, and the attempt made by Chayim and Glückel obviously failed, but Glückel took great pride in the fact that there were at least negotiations toward such an alliance, as she took pride at the successful marriage of Zipporah to the son of wealthy Elias Cleve, and in her husband's work to arrange the marriages of her siblings after the death of her father.

Then, in the midst of success, on January 11, 1689, tragedy struck. Chayim fell over a sharp stone while traveling to another merchant's house. He apparently suffered extreme internal trauma, leading to his death. The last encounters between Glückel and Chayim once again reveal the restrictions placed upon women in early modern Jewish culture. Glückel was prevented by Mosaic law from embracing Chayim one last time since she was "unclean." The great irony is that anti-Semitic claims that Jews desired the blood of Christian children for magic rituals completely ignored the traditional avoidance of contact with blood deeply embedded within Jewish tradition.

Chayim was buried on January 16, 1689, and Glückel writes, "a sad sight it must have been to see me sitting thus with my twelve fatherless children by my side." However, though Glückel mourned profusely, writing, "I truly believe I shall never cease from mourning my dear friend," she did not ignore her very real need to provide for herself and her younger, unmarried children. Always having been privy to Chayim's business dealings, Glückel became an independent merchant. It is also at this time that she began to write her memoirs in order to ease some of the pain caused by Chayim's death and to leave a written record of her advice and counsel for her children.

Throughout the Middle Ages, and well into the 16th and 17th centuries, masters' widows were, on occasion, allowed their husband's status in the guild, though this increasingly became a temporary grant in the post-medieval, early modern centuries. Still, Elizabeth Baulacre , widowed in 1641, transformed her husband's small firm into the largest producer of gold thread in Geneva. English widows ran coal mines, sold wool wholesale, and made contracts with the army and navy. In addition, poor women often did piecework for the masters of various guilds, like Glückel's widowed maternal grandmother and mother did. Therefore, there was ample precedent in the whole of early modern society for widows, regardless of religious affiliation, to take on work or take over a deceased husband's business activities in order to support a family.

Being Jewish, Glückel did not have to worry about guild restrictions, and her Judaism actually provided her with some advantages where travel was concerned. Though her husband left behind substantial outstanding debts, upon which the creditors demanded immediate payment, Glückel was able to balance accounts, selling some goods at an auction: "Everything brought a good price, and though I allowed six months for payment, still it all went nicely, and praise God, I suffered no losses." In fact, she cleared her husband's 20,000-Reichsthaler debt within the year, turned a profit on her transactions, and loaned out the profit she made at interest.

At this point, she began to make matches for her unmarried children, listening to their wishes in matters of betrothal as she went about this business. She married her gadabout son Loeb to the daughter of Hirschel Ries of Berlin, on the condition that Ries board her son for three years and provide him with 400 Reichsthalers annually. Unfortunately, Ries would not uphold his part of the bargain where the dowry was concerned, and Loeb, who "knew nothing of business," was allowed, by his father-in-law, to "run like a loose sheep" and to engage in a series of bad business transactions. When Loeb fell thousands of Reichsthalers into debt, Ries was willing to let him rot in prison, according to Glückel, who assumed her son's debts and started paying them. By her own account, Loeb returned to Berlin, "where he ran quacking about and trying to do a little business." Needless to say, he failed at all his ventures, and eventually had to come with his wife and child to live with his mother.

Fortunately for Loeb, Glückel proved to be quite the astute businesswoman. In merchandise, she sold five to six hundred Reichsthalers monthly. She also went to the Brunswick Fair twice a year, turning some several thousands there in profit annually. She bought wares in Holland, and sold goods in her own Hamburg store, while also maintaining "a lively trade in seed pearls. My business prospered," Glückel could observe. "My credit grew by leaps and bounds. If I had wanted 20,000 Reichsthalers [in credit], it would have been mine." She was out on her travels, even in the dead of winter, conducting business, and here, as previously mentioned, her Judaism proved to be of some benefit. Since most inns had restrictions prohibiting the boarding of Jews, Jewish familial networks had established private homes where merchant travelers could stay throughout Europe. Christian merchants failed to establish such extensive networks, and since it was both dangerous and disreputable for a woman traveling alone to stay at an inn, Christian women were at a disadvantage. Glückel, as a Jewish woman, on the other hand, was able to stay with family and friends. Likewise, as noted by the historian Merry Wiesner, since Jewish culture honored the scholar, physician, and rabbi more than the merchant, male business activity was seen more as an evil necessity than something of prestige to be reserved for men. Women could thereby run any number of Jewish businesses, as long as they did not deal with matters of religion, such as kosher butchering.

Still Glückel had to face hardships in the midst of her success. When she sent her 14-year-old son Joseph to learn Talmudic interpretation of Jewish law and scripture, she soon learned that his teacher was fleecing him of both tuition and room and board fees. She promptly had Joseph rescued by another son, Mordecai, and made sure that his new teacher instructed him in her house. Likewise, her travels exposed her to danger, for, in the course of her lifetime, male Jewish merchants traveling as short a distance as the road between Altona and Hamburg were constantly exposed to robbery, and at least two were murdered by her own reckoning during her 11-year career as an independent merchant. Quite literally, Glückel admits to having paid "protection" money on the roads to ensure her safety while traveling.

Then, at about the age of 54, in 1700, she remarried, as she herself wrote, in order to atone for her sins. Hirz Lévy was the leading Jewish banker in Lorraine, so that, on the surface, the match seemed ideal. Glückel had just arranged the marriage of her last son, Moses, and was only caring for a remaining 11-year-old daughter named Miriam, for whom Lévy agreed to care, and whose marriage he agreed to arrange. In turn, Glückel was willing to give all her personal wealth to Lévy as dowry. Though her writing in the memoirs is particularly unclear at this point, it appears that Glückel was lonely, missed Chayim, and was seeking a match that would somehow fill the void. With Miriam, she went to join her new husband in Metz. Her memoirs describe Lévy as a truly good man, but, soon after Glückel's arrival, he began to groan in his sleep and eat poorly.

Within a year of her new marriage, she learned that Lévy was heavily indebted and that his creditors were demanding repayment. With her property now attached to Lévy's estate, Glückel lost all of her personal resources to debt repayment. She proudly writes that she protected the money of her daughter Miriam and made sure that her son Nathan was paid in full by Lévy, who also owed this son-in-law money. She then goes on to remark that the entire economy was suffering in Metz, but that if Lévy had been able to hold off his creditors for two years, he would have benefited from a cyclical upswing. With or without improved business opportunities, the cost of living was periodically quite high in Metz, and Glückel and her husband sometimes lacked bread, and needed to take charitable aid from her son-in-law Moses Krumbach, a local Jewish notable in Metz who was married to Glückel's daughter Esther and who had arranged the marriage to Hirz Lévy in the first place. More important, from her perspective, true tragedy struck as 28-year-old Loeb, her father's namesake, took ill and died during this difficult period.

After a decade of troubles, Hirz Lévy died on July 24, 1712. It appears that some lost ground was regained between 1701 and 1712, however, for Glückel notes that she did get back somewhat less than a third of what she brought to the marriage financially. Though she was not completely penniless, she was evicted from the house she was renting immediately after her husband's death—ironically, the house had once been his. Her son-in-law Moses Krumbach lacked space for his mother-in-law by her account, and Glückel did not have a place to go in Metz until a certain Jacob Marburg allowed her to construct a small room in his house. Her room had no kitchen or hearth, so that she had to make use of his, climbing 22 steps to reach warmth in the wintertime. Glückel writes that, at 66, "It was so hard for me that usually I abandoned the effort."

In 1715, Glückel fell ill and had to keep someone to help care for her—part of that expense being paid for by charitable funds in the Jewish community. Moses Krumbach came at this point and promised his mother-in-law her own room on the ground floor of his house so she would not have to climb any stairs. Glückel, at first, refused his offer, now admitting in her memoirs that she had "long refused" it. Finally, however, she agreed to his plan, though she records that she had many reasons for wishing never to lose her independence and live with her children. Until her death in 1724, Glückel continued to live with Esther and Krumbach. By her own accounts, they treated her to all the honors in the world, letting her travel about the city when she could, and feeding her whenever she arrived home.

Glückel's significance to historians may lie in the insight she gives us concerning the lives of early modern Jewish women, but her own sense of purpose lay in the example she set for her children. At various points in her memoirs she tells her intended audience, her children, to perform acts of charity freely; to be honest in business dealings "with both Jews and Gentiles, lest the name of Heaven be profaned"; and to serve God and Jewish tradition in prayer and sincerity. She freely identifies "righteous gentiles," including monarchs like King Frederick I of Prussia, thereby demonstrating a lack of prejudice not always found in her age. Still, in an era when male dominance was still the rule, it is interesting that this educated woman, who could allude to both Torah and Talmud, felt obliged to open her memoirs by claiming that she, a humble woman, could not hope to present information on morals not already discussed by centuries of male Jewish sages. Then, after opening with such pro forma self-abasement, Glückel goes on to cite Talmud and state: "The kernel of the Torah is, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." From the very start, these memoirs, begun in 1690 to alleviate the pain of losing Chayim of Hameln, promote a sense of the practical, applied communitarianism which guided this woman's life.