Henrietta Szold meets Gluckel of Hameln - Critical Essay - Brief Article

Judaism, Spring, 2002 by Roberta Hanfling Schwartz

Upon the return of Henrietta and her mother to New York at the end of January 1910, Mathilda Schechter could not have been more welcoming. She and others arranged a gala dinner in their honor at the Hotel Premier. Friends and relatives from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Madison, and many in New York came to bring cheer at an elegant evening.

In regard to Henrietta Szold, Dr. Schechter was still not resting. Before leaving Capetown for Europe the following November, he addressed her differently than heretofore. No longer the standard, "Dear Miss Szold;" this time it was, "My dear Miss Szold," and he pressed yet another button. "I understand that Gluckel von Hammeln (sic) has lately appeared in a full German translation, or transliteration with introduction etc.... Have you seen it?... Now I expect to find a long letter from you in London. With love to you all, ever yours sincerely," (34)

Six weeks later, from Wiesbaden, Schechter pushes again, "Have you seen Gluckel von Hameln in the German translation or transliteration? The book is not on sale but the translator, Miss Pappenheim, gave me a copy. I am trying to get one for you, but if I do not succeed you shall have mine.... Ever your old friend," (35)

Schechter's desire to engender in Henrietta Szold a serious interest in the German translation of Gluckel von Hameln's journal was at its most obvious level related to his persistent concern for her mental health. Although Schechter did not know the details of the Pappenheim translation, his knowledge of the subject was strong. Only three years earlier he had published Studies in Judaism, Second Series, one chapter of which was devoted to The Memoirs of a Jewess of the Seventeenth Century, a 21-page essay, based upon his reading of the 1896 Kaufmann edition of a manuscript copy of Gluckel's chronicle. Szold had worked at length with Schechter to get his book ready for publication. The Gluckel story was one of many shared links between them. (36)

While the Society viewed itself as the soul of literate American Jewry, its early decades depended greatly on foreign writers. German, French, and Hebrew translations are laced through their publication lists. Gluckel's "seven little books" would fit perfectly with the type of works the Society promoted, hoping thereby to reach a broad audience. It was popular in style, Jewish piety and learning, woman's devotion, and the extraordinary find of a Jewish woman's seventeenth-century autobiography-the first such work extant. (37)

Only three years after the Pappenheim translation, another, intended for a large market, was launched by the then vigorous Judische Verlag, in Berlin. Unlike the Pappenheim version, the 1913 printing had a fine introduction, notes and index, albeit abridged and reworked under the editorship of Alfred Feilchenfeld. Making quite a splash, a second edition followed on its heels in 1914. While the impetus for a Gluckel translation into English had grown, Szold's work as translator for the Society had waned. That concentration was primarily in her early years there (1892-1905) although her magnum opus, translation of volumes one and two of Ginzberg's The Legends of the Jews came out in 1909-10. (She refused to continue with volumes three and four of The Legends after Ginzberg's marriage.) Furthermore, Gluckel's language, seventeenth-century West Yiddish was not her bailiwick.