Category: Cemetery Measurers
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Upcoming cemetery measuring workshop in Mount Carmel Cemetery
Unfortunately I’m not able to be in New York this year, but my fellow feldmesterins Sarah Chandler aka Kohenet Shamirah of Shamir Collective, Rabbi Noam Lerman, Eleonore Weill and Chelsea Simon are going to be back in Mount Carmel cemetery for our annual Elul cemetery measuring workshop. Tickets are available here. And you can watch…
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Sore-Rokhl the cemetery measurer of Krinki
In honour of Rosh Khoydesh Elel, a short excerpt from the memorial book of Krinski (Krynki), in Poland, remembering the zogerke, klogerke, beterke and cemetery measurer, Sore-Rokhl “di grobe” (“the fat one”). I have also translated a very short reference from the same memoir to a woman in a nearby village who knew how to…
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Midwives and soul-candle makers : the pious women of Burshtyn
An extract from Yoysef Shvarts, ‘Tipn un geshtaltn’ (Characters and personalities) from this memorial book to the town of Burshtyn, Ukraine. Feyge the midwife The doctors, Mandsheyn and Makh, who began working in Burshtyn from the beginning of the twentieth century, must have really racked their brains to find a way to make a living.…
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Brayndl the Zogerin from Mendele Moykhe Sforim’s “Di Klyatshe”
In this short excerpt from Mendele Moykher Sforim’s Di Klyatshe (The Mare), the protagonist, Yisroylik, who has been suffering from hallucinations, wakes up to find himself being fussed over by his mother and a number of local healers, among them Brayndl, the local zogerin. A title meaning “reciter” “speaker” or “preacheress”, zogerins were women who led…
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The Red Kerchief by Bal-Makhshoves
I’ve recently posted two examples of nineteenth century maskilic literature in which reform-minded authors included some of the women’s customs and roles documented on this site in their critiques of traditional Ashkenazi Jewish orthodoxy. In this essay on traditional charity collection, the literary critique Bal-Makshoves (Isidor Eliashev) describes how these religious women – zogerkes, opshprekherkes, tukerins and…
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Henye the Hoykhshprekherke, from Ayzik Meyer Dik’s “Reb Shmaye Eliter, der Gut-Yontef Biter”
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…
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Bobtshe Kilikovski-Cohen, the zogerke who measured cemeteries
From the Volkovisk (Vawkavysk, Belarus) memorial book. Bobtshe was a daughter in law of Sholem Potshter. Her husband was called Leybe and he was a wood trader. Her father was David the Rosh-Yeshiva. Her brother was Fishl, a Hebrew teacher. She could study Talmud, and she herself had composed a book of women’s prayers which were…
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Itsyekhe the child-snatcher’s wife : a list of 19th Century women’s professions from Kol Mevaser
This is an excerpt from a short story, “etlekhe yor tsurik” – “Several years ago”, published by an anonymous author in the Yiddish newspaper Kol Mevaser in 1868. The story takes place in a “typical” shtetl in the Pale of Settlement, during one of the dreaded periods of military conscription, when Jewish communities were forced to provide…
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Mestn Feld – a memory from Pruzhene (Pruzhany), Belarus
A memory of cemetery measuring from the town of Pruzhene, recorded after the Holocaust by A Fayvushinsky Cemetery measuring’ is used in cases of severe illness. It is done in this way: several women walk around the cemetery and measure like so: one holds a ball of cotton in her apron, and a second coils…
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Undzer Astronoyt – Our Astronaut by Jake Schneider
Lekoved Halloween, I’m thrilled to publish my first guest post – this feldmestn-inspired Yiddish poem by Jake Schneider, the English translation of which is published here for the first time. The poem follows an introduction written by Jake, describing the feldmestn-ritual-meets-Halloween-cabaret-act that inspired it. With huge thanks to Jake for sharing this with me and…
Pulling at Threads 