Author: feldmesterin
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“She was like the conductor of an orchestra, directing the wailing of the women in the cemetery” – the Lyubitsher “women’s rebetsn”
In his memoirs, Meir Pisiuk describes his mother, a religious teacher for girls and cemetery prayer leader in Lyubitsh, Lithuania (today Lyubcha, Belarus). This translation combines excerpts from Volumes 1 and 2 of his memoirs, Bleter Zikhroynes. And now I was back in Lyubitsh, where I sat myself down in the besmedresh and threw myself…
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Stesye and Gnesye – Moyshe Kulbak’s feldmesterins
The following is a short excerpt from Moyshe Kulbak‘s short novel, Montog (monday), which depicts a Jewish shtetl in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution. In this chapter, two feldmesterins – cemetery measurers – Stesye and Gnesye – measure the cemetery. Stesye and Gnesye Here are the two little old ladies, who Mordkhe Markus…
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Cemetery and grave measuring ritual guides
I’m sharing here my latest, updated ritual guides which have recently been published on Ritualwell. Guide to cemetery and grave measuring as practices to connect with the dead all year round, especially in times of crisis: https://ritualwell.org/blog/cemetery-grave-measuring-and-soul-candle-making-a-ritual-guide/ Guide to cemetery measuring and soul candle making for Yom Kippur: https://ritualwell.org/blog/yom-kippur-cemetery-grave-measuring-and-soul-candle-making-a-ritual-guide/ Also, for any Yiddish (or Swedish!)…
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Candle and cemetery magic to ward off death and rescue the dying – excerpts from a 1928 ethnographic study
The following excerpts are taken from an article by H. Khayes,on ‘Beliefs and customs in connection with death’, published in YIVO’s Filologishe shriftn in 1928. The study was based on a survey conducted among the members of the Vilna Teachers’ Seminary in 1925, asking them about beliefs and customs in the towns they grew up in. It also made use of a lot of…
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Grave measuring to assuage an angry spirit – an extract from Salomon’ Maimon’s memoirs
A few weeks ago, I had a dream that I measured my own mother’s grave. She died when I was 4, in traumatic circumstances that left me with PTSD. In the dream, I wasn’t measuring her grave to try to connect with and ask for her help, as was usually the custom but “to put…
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New online talk with the Workers Circle
The month of Elul has arrived, and with it the season of feldmestn (cemetery measuring), geyn af keyver oves (visiting ancestral graves) and raysn kvorim (lamenting over graves). I have a few new materials to share this month, as well as my first guest post and two new ritual guides. For now, if you are…
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Feldmestn – Cemetery measuring by Morris Rosenfeld
A poem about cemetery measuring by Morris Rosenfeld, the “sweatshop bard” best known for his poems describing the hardships of Jewish immigrants in the US. The original Yiddish can be found here. Feld-mestn – Cemetery measuring Walking through the stones, old Mina, And behind her, Fesye-Tsveytl Mina cries and says the tkhine And Fesye lays the…
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Petitioning the ancestors
In Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, people would visit the graves of deceased relatives not only as an act of remembrance, but to talk to them, ask them for blessings and present them with requests which they could take to God on behalf of the living. The practice, known in Yiddish as “geyn af keyver-oves”…
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Inviting the dead to our parties
In the summer of 2018, my little sister Viv got married. Our mother died when she was 2 and I was 4, and I was incredibly honoured when Viv asked me to take mum’s place under the khupe – the wedding canopy. It was only when we were all ready to walk her down the aisle that I suddenly…
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Songs and prayers for cemetery measuring (and what we can learn from them)
As Marek Tuszewicki notes in his study of Ashkenazi folk medicine, A frog under the tongue, the prayers said during feldmestn were of fundamental importance. “According to the author of Sefer matamim, the fundamental significance of this custom … lay not so much in measuring as in pacing the cemetery with prayer on one’s lips,…
