A Memoir of a Childhood Shaped by Expulsion

Glikl bas Leyb Hamel

1719

I was born in Hamburg, but I heard from my dear parents and others—I was not yet three years old when all the Jews of Hamburg were served with an edict of expulsion and forced to move to Altona, which belonged to His Majesty the King of Denmark, who granted the Jews good privileges. Altona was barely fifteen minutes away from Hamburg. There were…

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The early memories of Glikl bas Leyb Hamel (also known as Glikl of Hameln), moving between Hamburg and Altona, underscore the fragile and shifting nature of Jewish legal status in early modern Europe. Born in 1645 in Hamburg, a self-governing port city, Glikl soon faced upheaval when Ashkenazic Jews were expelled in 1649, forcing her family to seek refuge in nearby Altona, which was under Danish rule. Even there, security was uncertain. Jews depended on Hamburg for their livelihoods and later fled back there when Swedish troops invaded Altona in the 1650s. They returned as Danish subjects, yet religious restrictions in Hamburg meant Altona remained the locus of their ritual life. Though Sephardic Jews were first welcomed in Hamburg, in exchange for heavy annual fees, growing restrictions drove them to Amsterdam in the late seventeenth century. Jews relied on unstable bargains with rulers, easily revoked or reshaped by politics, war, or economic pressure.

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Creator Bio

Glikl bas Leyb Hamel

ca. 1645–1724

Devastated by the death of Ḥayim, her husband of thirty years, Glikl (Glükel) bas Leyb Hamel—at the time forty-four years old—began writing a memoir of their life together. She is known because of this book-length work, written in the Yiddish vernacular of the time. Mixing family history, moral parables, business advice, and more, the book is not just a simple memoir of events. Glikl spent most of her life in Hamburg, where, in partnership with Ḥayim, she dealt successfully in merchandise, including fine jewels, and in credit transactions. The couple had fourteen children, of whom twelve lived to adulthood. Ten years after Ḥayim’s death, Glikl married a widower from Metz and lived the rest of her life there.