Author: feldmesterin
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“And the Jewish women … they knew how to go to war with Satan” – an excerpt from A. S. Zaks’ Khoreve Veltn
The following text is an excerpt from Avrom Simkhe Zaks‘ ‘Khoreve Veltn’ (Destroyed Worlds) describing Jewish customs in the month of Elul – the month leading up to the High Holidays, and to Yom Kippur, the day of judgement. The Yiddish original is available here. The last two paragraphs describe the tkhines (supplications) and klogenishn…
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A tkhine for making Yom Kippur soul candles
In this extract from his 1899-1912 unfinished autobiographical novel, Shloyme Reb Khayims, Mendele Moykher Sforim, the “grandfather of Yiddish literature”, describes his mother, Sore making soul candles for Yom Kippur in a ritual known as ‘kneytlekh-leygn’ – wick laying. Elsewhere in the book, he also describes women in the shtetl measuring the cemetery. This tkhine…
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“She looked one of the witches from Macbeth, but a folksy, Jewish version” – Soul Candle magic from Y. Y. Trunk’s Poland.
In the second volume of his famous memoir “Poland”, Yekhiel Yeshaye Trunk paints a colourful picture of his aunt, grandmother and other women making the Yom Kippur soul candle. While other memoirs, like that of Mendele Moykher Sforim, Bella Chagall and Pauline Wengeroff describe this ritual as an extremely pious and moving ceremony, Trunk has…
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Gitele the pious gabete of Koriv
This is an excerpt from the memoirs of Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport, published in the memorial book of Koriv, Poland Here he remembers one particular character, Gitele di Gabete, who, acting as religious leader to the women of Koriv, used to, among other things, measure the town cemetery in times of crisis. ‘Gabete’ – the…
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Incantations must not be taught to anyone
Translation of an excerpt from Abraham Rechtman, Yidishe Etnografye un Folklor, p. 289-298. Rav Yokhanan had the habit of coming to sit by the gates of the mikve, and used to say that ‘if Jewish daughters as they come out from immersing themselves look at me, they will have children as beautiful as I am.’…
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There are few particularly religious women in town … who also measure the cemetery.
“Elul days” from Khaim Shoys, Dos Yontef Bukh (1933). Life goes on in the shtetl as usual. Yet, at the same time it is clear to anyone looking that people are trying to be more pious. They are careful not to commit transgressions which, at any other time of year, they don’t even think about.…
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‘The entire shtetl accompanied her to her eternal rest’ – reverence for the midwife
Quoted on the introduction page to midwives in Eastern Europe is the following question from the Jewish Ethnographic Program – a vast questionnaire created by S. Ans-ki’s ethnographic team in 1913, and a hugely important source on midwives. “Is there a custom that when the midwife dies, all of the children whom she brought…
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Children lament their mother in Brestetshke
‘Examples of laments by children’, collected by Moyshe Melman in Brestetshke (Beresteczko, Berestetchka, Brestetshke, ברסטצ’ק, Brestitski) in response to a 1928 survey by the YIVO ethnographic commission. Original Yiddish published in Itzik Gottesman, ‘Yidishe Klogenishn’, YIVO Bleter Vol.4 (2003), p. 137-155. Translated by Annabel Gottfried Cohen. I’m walking slowly along the footpath. Suddenly, I hear…
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A woman’s lament for her husband
This klogenish (lament) is one of several collected by the YIVO ethnographic commission in the 1920s and 30s. The full collection can be found in an article by Itzik Gottesman, ‘Yidishe Klogenishn’ (Yidish laments) published in YIVO Bleter in 2003. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing a few of these klogenishn in…
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Cemetery and grave measuring
This is a translation of a 1906 German study of Feld (cemetery) and Keywer (grave – from the Hebrew and Yiddish קבֿר) measuring by Russian Jewish anthropologist S. Weissenberg. The original German article can be found here. It actually consists of two articles – the second half, in which the font changes, is an extract…
