“There is much to reward the reader… (in) Glikl’s extraordinary memoirs.”

Times Literary Supplement

"This is the product of a decades-long labor of love by Turniansky, a professor emerita of Yiddish at the Hebrew University, who like Glikl sought diversion from melancholy after the death of her husband. . . . I have no criticism whatsoever of Turniansky’s work; her edition is superb, and her commentary, laying out the framework of the whole, helps us admirably through the murkier parts. . . . Sara Friedman’s translation not only is chaste, sprightly, and idiomatic but, with its comfortably archaic feel, also conjures up the feel of Glikl’s original. . . . Let us now praise famous Jewish women, indeed, as well as those who for the first time have brought into English this complete and meticulously curated edition of her endlessly fascinating Memoirs."
 

Mosaic Magazine

"Realizing how much fuller an experience this new book would provide, I rushed to get Glikl Memoirs: 1691-1719, translated by Sara Friedman and published by Brandeis University Press in 2019. This new edition not only includes all of Glikl’s writing, but also a fascinating introduction by Chava Turniansky, professor emerita of Yiddish literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an Israel Prize laureate. Turniansky also provided the extensive annotations that give historical confirmation and context for the events and people Glikl writes about. The new translation is also livelier, providing fuller expression to Glikl’s vibrant personality."

Judy Gruen | Jewish Action

“Glikl Hamel’s Memoirs open up the life of an early modern Jewish woman in Germany and France in fascinating detail—children, the ups and downs of family fortune, trade, prayer, story-telling, and more.   Chava Turniansky has brought her immense Yiddish learning to this splendid edition and Sara Friedman‘s translation does justice to Glikl’s lively prose.  Kudos for this gift to European history.”

Natalie Zemon Davis, author of Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives

“One of the most riveting literary works of the seventeenth century, Glikl’s Memoirs is a unique human document that records Jewish history through the eyes of a learned, astute Jewish woman. This translation of Chava Turniansky’s magisterial edition is an occasion for celebration, as the complete edition has never before been available in its full glory in English.”

Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University

"I cannot recommend this new edition highly enough. Not only is the translation more colorful and accessible to modern readers, but the inclusion of all of Glikl’s stories helps one better appreciate the full scope of her literary achievement."

AISH.com

"[...] an important entry into the canon of Jewish literature."

Penny Schwartz | Jewish Telegraphic Agency