Autobiographies and memoirs

Abstract

Jewish autobiographical writing was a rare genre—or at least a rarely preserved genre—until the eighteenth century. The few late-antiquity examples, Josephus's life and a few medieval fragmental autobiographical texts, are more the exception than the rule. Autobiographical writings existed, nonetheless, in other formats. Salomon Maimon's Lebensgeschichte marks a new era in Jewish autobiographical writing. Written in German and influenced by Rousseau's Confessions, it served as a model for the next generation of Jewish autobiographical works, such as Mordechai Aaron Gunzberg's Aviezer. The autobiographical genre flourished among Jewish women who immigrated to the United States or were born there. Among the earlier examples are Mary Antin and Emma Goldman. Memoirs and autobiographies enable the modern scholar to gain knowledge about subjects rarely documented in other genres. Among them are issues of sexuality, often discussed rather openly in pre-modern writings. Issues of the body and physical self are also revealed through the writer's tendency to discuss diseases and pain in detail.