Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln

The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln provides an inside look into the life of a Jewish woman in the middle ages. The author of the book, Gluckel, probably never thought her memoir would last for generations, but there is a lot that can be discovered from this deeply personal look into her life. Gluckel wrote this memoir to her children to detail the many events that occurred in her life. Her book covers a wide breadth of experiences from the mundane, to the tragic, to the joyful. No matter what happened to Gluckel in her life, she always maintained her deep faith in God rooted in Jewish religious observance. Without ever second guessing God's decrees, she accepted the good with the bad.
Although she begins her tale by saying, "This my children will be no book of morals," (Gluckel, 1) she immediately launched into a directive to her children on how to live as faithful Jews.…