Gluckel of Hameln is supposedly required reading, the memoirs of Jewish woman from the end of the 1600s. Every time I tried to take it out there was always a hitch, but I finally got my hands on it and read it through, much to Ben's annoyance ("Hey Ma! What's so interesting?")
What is surprising to me is how money is most of the conversation. This person is worth this much; that person has that much; this person had this much but lost it. "Thalers," the currency of the time and place, is probably the most repetitive word in the book.
Gluckel had 13 children to marry off, so that was the other theme. Girls of 12 were promised to boys from other cities that they would not see until the "betrothal feast," at which point everything was agreed on. No child said, "Mother dear, not for me." Gluckel herself wed at the age of 14, and was widowed at 44, after 30 years of marriage.
One passage in particular I found entertaining was when she recounts a visit to her in-laws. While her husband's father was worth a staggering amount, he gave them a gift worth a paltry sum. However, she proclaims, we treasured that present, unlike other ungrateful children who suck their parents dry. I can't tell if she's being serious or sarcastic, if she's pointedly chewing out one of her kids.
It's also a reminder of how precarious life was for Jews in the past. The rabble could be roused, the leader could banish. Life was cheap and murders were often unavenged. Never mind illness; Gluckel lost a little girl and many other relatives to diseases that probably do not plague us any longer.
While reading of all the arranged marriages, I snarked to myself, "Hey, solution for shidduch 'crisis' right here! Let's bring back betrothing tweens to unseen grooms!"
My neighbor has a great-granddaughter born the same time as Ben. I hear she's quite the cutie. Crisis averted.
I've never read Gluckel, other than extracts, although we had a few copies at the Jewish library I used to work at.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the line of "We don't believe in arranged marriages" isn't exactly true. Very occasionally people refused (there's a famous story about the Seer of Lublin refusing to marry the woman arranged for him), but not often.
Just seen this book advertised in The Jewish Review of Books and thought you might be interested: Daughter of the Shtetl a memoir of shtetl life in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.
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