Category: Categories
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Esther-Khaye the Zogerin of Zabludow
As soon as Rosh Khoydesh Elul comes around, Esther-Khaye the zogerin appears on the scene. For most of the year, we don’t see much of her. She is a quiet, modest Jew, with a shrivelled face. Her hair is always covered by a scarf, both in summer and in winter. Her face and her clothes…
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Dvoyre the Mohilev Community Caller
An extract from A Litvin’s “Yudishe Neshomes” (Jewish souls), a collection of remembered characters and images from the Jewish past in various parts of the world. Here he describes Dvoyre, the cemetery prayer leader in Mohilve, Belarus. In other places, this kind of woman who worked in the cemetery might have been called a “ma’avar-yaboknitse”…
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Yom Kippur soul candles in the Talne Hasidic court
This is a short extract from journalist and writer Dovid Leib Mekler’s “Fun rebns hoyf” (From the rebbe’s court), a collection of stories of the old country, most of which he collected from Hasidic Jews in New York in the 1920s and 30s. In this, Mekler describes the making of Yom Kippur Soul Candles in…
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The eyshes-khayel of Hendrikov – from Y. Y. Trunk’s “Poland”
Another excerpt from Y. Y. Trunk’s famous memoir – a short but sweet recollection of a real-life opshprekherke (healer through incantations) and feldmesterin (cemetery or grave measurer). Like many of the other women documented on this site, she is remembered as being remarkably pious and learned – a description that contrasts somewhat with Trunk’s witchy account…
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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…
Pulling at Threads 