Like “etlekhe yor tsurik“, Ayzik Meyer Dik’s “Shmaye Eliter the “good-yontef” wisher” is an example of the pedagogic Yiddish literature of the 1860s that sought, through comic stereotypes of traditional Jewish life, to encourage reform and modernization. Like Itse the khaper, Reb Shmaye – portrayed as a “typical” Jewish man – lacks any worldy skills, and makes his living as a melamed or teacher in the hated religious school, the kheyder. Also like Itse, Shmaye depends heavily on the income of his wife Henye who, like Istyekhe, makes her money as a leader of various women’s customs and rituals.

Seeing these customs as part of what he sees as the backwards, superstitious nature of traditional Ashkenazi Judaism, Dik, like the anonymous author in Kol Mevaser, nonetheless portrays them as an important part of that tradition. Meanwhile, the women who led these customs are presented not as marginal characters, but as part of a class of religious functionaries, alongside male religious teachers and others who worked for the kahal. Dik, who wrote for a predominantly female readership, dedicates significant space to mocking women’s customs and women religious functionaries, through the character of Henye the “hoyshprekherke” which appears to be a play on the word “opshprekherke” – evil eye healer. A skilled pourer of wax and led and healer with elflocks, “opshprekherke” is just one of Henye’s many professions.  

Shmaye’s wife Henye the Hoykhsphrekherke, who was known before her wedding as the “Erets-Yisroel girl“

When Shmaye was 18 years old, he was married to a girl who was at the time, known as the “Land of Israel girl” and who, after her marriage, would be known as “Henye the hoykhshprekherke”. She was called the “Erets-Yisroel” girl because her father once travelled with her to the land of Israel. Except that shortly after they set off on their journey, in a small town barely seven miles away from Vilna, he became ill and died. The young girl quickly turned back to Vilna, bringing with her a little sack of “land of Israel Earth”. This Erets-Yisroel earth was later given to our Reb Shmaye as a dowry.

She became known as Henye the “high-speaker” because she was a big talker and she always spoke very highly of herself and of her husband. She knew what was going on in every household and in the married life of every couple. She was like a living calendar. She remembered the wedding date of every girl in town, every marital incident, the number of times each woman had been divorced, who was in which month of pregnancy, and who had needed to pawn their pearls that month … To put it briefly, she knew everything about every living and dead member of the community, about every big and small occurrence.  She knew where each person lived, and how they lived.

Reb Shmaye managed to earn a pretty penny from his lowly occupations, not to mention plenty of free food and schnaps. His wife followed a similar career path. She didn’t spin flax or wool, and she didn’t run a successful business. What she did have was the gift of the gab.

With this gift she soon tired out the six neighbors to whom she rented rooms in her home. She also used it to help her husband expand his teaching work. She took brides to the mikve, and to the cemetery before the wedding ceremony.^[1]  Once a new mother was back on her feet following a birth, Henye carried the bits and pieces away from the birthing bed.^[2] She brought women’s questions to the rabbinic court. She measured the cemetery and made soul candles for Yom Kippur. She prepared suckling-dogs to suckle the nipples of wealthy first-time mothers, and tended to her Erets-Yisroyl earth, which she claimed to have brought from the land of Israel but in fact came from land only six miles from Vilna. On shminatseres and simkhes toyre, she would go around wishing people ‘gut yontev’ with her husband.  She was always talking about the ancestors, about the legendary Sambatyen river, on the other side of which lay the lost tribes of Israel, and about the guard who stood by the Cave of Machpelah, tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. On top of her other work, she also poured wax and lead, and applied elflocks, and was well versed in all womanly things. Most of these jobs came with perks in the form of a bit of food and drink. 

And further, she took donations.

Cite this: Ayzik Meyer Dik and Annabel Gottfried Cohen (trans.) “Henye the Hoykhshprekherke” from Ayzik Meyer Dik’s Reb Shmaye Eliter der gut-yontef-biter, (1860.)

Note: I first came across this text in a class with Yitskhok Niborski at the Paris Yiddish Center – Medem Library. The discussions in class and Yitskhok’s advice outside of class greatly aided me in my translation (although any errors or liberties taken in the translation are certainly mine!) I based my translation on two different published versions of the story, each of which differed slightly, to maximise the amount of detail about Henye and her professions. The two versions appear in the following collections: 

Isaac Meir Dik, Geklibene Verk (Collected Work), Vol. 1, Sh. Shreberk Publishing House, Vilna, 1922. Available here.

Isaac Meir Dik, Geklibene Verk, (Collected Work), New York, 1954. 

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^[1] It was customary in Eastern Europe to invite deceased blood relatives – especially parents or grandparents – to a wedding. This ritual invitation was often led by a professional zogerin or klogerin.  

^[2] This probably refers to food and drink and various ritual items (amulets, religious books, a bottle to blow in) that were brought to the birthing bed before and after childbirth. Although Henye is not described as a midwife, this suggests that as a deeply religious woman she would often be present at a birth, which was seen as a crucial moment of spiritual transition. See “Beyle Shoyver’s childbirth mitsve.” Dik, suggesting her piety was just for show, implies that she did this mitsve simply because it came with some form of payment or gifts.