"Gluckel, though she would not have known what to make of this, was an artist, and as a true artist, gave more than she knew. In writing of her life, her family and business dealings, she has left us a portrait of an era. Better than any history text she instructs us about what it was like to be a Jew in Europe in her time." Introduction, pg. vii.

"If God wills that I may live to finish them, I shall leave you my Memoirs in seven little books. And so, as it seems best, I shall begin now with my birth." Book 1, pg. 5.

"Following the death of his first wife, my father married my mother, who was then a fatherless child. My dear good mother, long may she live! has often told me how upon the death of her father, she and her good mother Mata, of...