The diary of a Jewish business-woman living in 17th-century Germany might not sound like the basis for a compelling story for contemporary readers. But that isn’t stopping Julie and Matisyahu Tonti from transforming the memoir of Glickl of Hamlyn into a graphic novel.
Eleven years ago, Julie, who lives with her husband in Silver Spring and serves as director of educator services at The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, found a copy of Glickl’s diary at a book fair. As a Jewish history teacher at various day schools, she noticed that many of her lessons on the Middle Ages focused on Jews facing oppression, expulsion and genocide.
Glickl’s diary provided a breath of fresh air since it centered on the life of a successful Jewish woman who lived a devout life in a close-knit community. Julie began incorporating the memoirs into her lessons on medieval Europe.
Originally from Hamburg, Glickl was married by age 14 and moved to the small town of Hamlyn, her husband’s home community. Glickl began writing in her 40s after the passing of her spouse. The diary was preserved by her family and published in the 20th century, providing readers with a window into Glickl’s inner thoughts and personality.
In addition to being the mother of 14 children, 12 of whom lived into adulthood, Glickl worked as a merchant, selling gold and precious stones, while also lending money on the side.
As a merchant, Glickl traveled to Denmark, Amsterdam and France. “There is an episode where she gets really seasick on the boat,” said Julie. “But thank God, they make it to their destination and everything’s fine. But … everyone’s throwing up everywhere, they have to lie down very still to just, kind of, calm their bodies. …It’s a memorable episode in the book.”
Aside from the family business and raising her children as a single mother, Glickl had to overcome such obstacles as the death of her husband, marrying off her children, providing them with dowries and surviving an outbreak of the Black Plague.
“Back in their day, they didn’t really have so many reliable doctors and scientific equipment,” she said. “But still, that human feeling of uncertainty, and also kind of repercussions — like when the COVID came around, there were all these prejudices [which] swelled, and the same thing in Glickl’s day.”
In addition, one of Glickl’s son’s proved to be somewhat of a problem child. “She has one son that just kind of makes these bad decisions left and right,” said Julie. “He’s getting into debt and he’s making poor business decisions. [He] can’t get his act together.”
Describing the original diary as somewhat “dense,” Julie’s original idea was to try and deconstruct it into “more bite-sized pieces” for young readers.
“So [Julie] found this narrative,” said Matisyahu, “and she was connected with [Glickl] as a mother and as a Jewish woman, but she couldn’t really get the kids to relate to it so well, because it was Old English [and] it was an earlier translation.”
Said Julie: “I think the idea of making a graphic novel, where you can kind of experience her life through pictures, will be really exciting for perhaps younger people and perhaps a larger audience, maybe even non-Jewish audience. And so that was the goal because her story is very relatable. … Even though she lived almost 400 years ago, there’s just a lot to learn from her and relate to with her story.”
The fact that Matisyahu has previously published graphic novels also played a role in the selection of the medium, Julie said. Matisyahu compared his style to that of Japanese manga comics, saying he wanted “to convey a sense of place and time very clearly in this book.”
For research, the Tontis traveled to Germany to glean further insight into Glickl’s life.
The book will be intended for an audience of teenagers and older, said Julie. But many of the pertinent details on the book’s publication — such as the publisher or release date — still need to be determined.
When asked what she most hopes readers will take away from Glickl’s story, Julie said she hopes to put a human face on the Jewish experience of the Middle Ages.
“So much of the world doesn’t really know much about Judaism at all,” she said. “And this is a really low-barrier way to learn more about the Jewish story from the Jewish perspective, especially [from] a woman who is a religious woman and mother.”
Jesse Berman is a freelance writer.
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