Glückel of Hameln

Glückel of Hameln (Yiddish: גליקל בת ר' יהודה לייב האַמיל; also spelled Glückel, Glüeckel, Gllckl Hamel or Glikl of Hamelin; also known as Glikl bas Judah Leib) (c. 1646 – September 19, 1724) was a German Jewish businesswoman and diarist. Written in her native tongue of Western Yiddish over the course of thirty years, her memoirs were originally intended to be an ethical will for her children and future descendants. Glückel's diaries are the only known pre-modern Yiddish memoirs written by a woman. The Memoirs of Glückel of Hameln provide an intimate portrait of German-Jewish life between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and have become an important source for historians, philologists, sociologists, literary critics, and linguists.