The Jewish Philogynist

This series highlights the lives of four Jewish women (three from Poland, one from Germany) who lived in the early modern period (16th-18th centuries). 

Each of these women was notable in her own society and era and they retain historical importance as both exemplars and shapers of the early modern European Jewish historical experience.

Each one's story exhibits the fragility of historical female Jewish stereotypes and demonstrates there is no knowing history without understanding women's share in it.

The Jewish Philogynist

The leitmotif of Glikl bas Yehuda Hamel's (1645-1724, often known as Gluckel of Hamlin) famous memoir is philogyny, antonym of misogyny, denoting a deep admiration for womankind. Glikl would have been baffled by notions of egalitarianism or feminism. She lived in a society of acknowledged hierarchies, with men, the patriarchy, the ruling one. Glikl subtly argued that men might not be entitled to such elevated status, while women deserved a higher rank than was assigned to them.