Category: Prayers, Laments, Incantations
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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…
Pulling at Threads 