An Extraordinary Life and Its Window on Ordinary Jewish Lifetest

While the Jews of 17th- and 18th-century Europe produced an enormous and varied amount of written material, the memoirs of Glikl of Hamel stand out for the broad window they provide into ordinary life, and into the extraordinary life of their author. The mother of fourteen children and an accomplished businesswoman, Glikl recorded folk wisdom, religious reflections, accounts of her familial and commercial affairs, and much else in her Yiddish-language diaries. Rachel Greenblatt discusses this document with Nachi Weinstein. (Audio, 80 minutes.)