Multi-threading in Python vs Java

[Peter Cacioppi]

Could someone give me a brief thumbnail sketch of the difference between multi-threaded programming in Java.

I have a fairly sophisticated algorithm that I developed as both a single threaded and multi-threaded Java application. The multi-threading port was fairly simple, partly because Java has a rich library of thread safe data structures (Atomic Integer, Blocking Queue, Priority Blocking Queue, etc). 

There is quite a significant performance improvement when multithreading here.

I'd like to port the project to Python, partly because Python is a better language (IMHO) and partly because Python plays well with Amazon Web Services. 

But I'm a little leery that things like the Global Interpret Lock will block the multithreading efficiency, or that a relative lack of concurrent off the shelf data structures will make things much harder.

Any advice much appreciated. Thanks.