This is just a short post to share this incredible photo, featured on p 23 of the New York Yiddish Forverts Jan 27, 1924. The Yiddish caption reads “These are the “zogerkes” and “klog muters” of the Vilna cemetery. When they are paid, they cry and recite tkhines (yiddish prayers) on behalf of the women who come to the cemetery to visit the graves of their relatives.”

Most of the sources that I’ve found about these “cemetery women”, as they were also known, come from shtetls, so it’s really exciting to find one from a city. My friend Rabbi Noam Lerman recently met someone who remembered wailing women showing up to a funeral in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw after the war, so we know that these women also practiced in other cities.

Most texts describe cemetery women as older women, but this photo suggests that that was not always the case. While, as this caption says, they usually worked for other women, other photographs from other places such as Brody and Kremenits demonstrate that they also served male clients.

It is also interesting that the caption distinguishes between “klogmuters” (wailers) and “zogerkes” (reciters) as two distinct roles. This distinction is also made in other sources I’ve found, with one ethnographic study suggesting that the cemetery zogerke was a more modern role that was slowly taking over from the traditional klogmuters or klogerins. In some places, however, it seems like the terms were used interchangeably to refer to the same role, even if some aspects of the traditional klogmuter practice — wailing spontaneously at funerals, for example — were gradually declining.

To read more about klogmuters (also known as klogerins, klogerkes, baveynerins) and cemetery zogerkes (or zogerins, beterkes, ruferkes) and discover the stories of the real women who held these roles in their communities, visit the relevant pages of this site. You can also read a summary of my research on these and other women’s roles in my recent JWA encyclopedia entry (which also contains some incredible photos.)

Finally, for intermediate-advanced Yiddish speakers, my online Workers Circle class looking at how these women are documented in Yiddish fiction, memoirs and memorial books is re-starting tomorrow. More info here: https://www.circle.org/2025yiddishclasses/p/intermediate-advanced-with-annie-cohen-women-religious-leaders