Category: Yizkor
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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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Mourning women and cemetery prayer leaders in interwar Vilna
This is just a short post to share this incredible photo, featured on p 23 of the New York Yiddish Forverts Jan 27, 1924. The Yiddish caption reads “These are the “zogerkes” and “klog muters” of the Vilna cemetery. When they are paid, they cry and recite tkhines (yiddish prayers) on behalf of the women…
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Aunt Libtsye with her prayer book
This incredible short account of Libtsye who led her community in prayer as they were taken to be murdered in Rohatyn, Ukraine, is taken from a memorial book to a neighbouring shtetl, Burshtyn. It is the third in a series of posts that, following this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, I am sharing to remember women…
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Madwomen and midwives from Novogrudok
Two years ago, I took a course with Prof. David Fishman on the history of the shtetl. In one of our classes, Prof. Fishman showed us this video of the Belarussian shtetl Novogrudok/Navaredok, filmed in 1931 by former Novogrudok resident, the famous philologist, lexicographer and philanthropist Alexander Harkavy. About 3 mins 39 seconds in, the…
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Roiza Baila Czarnochapka Jedwabnik, the synagogue zogerke of Drobin
In honour of Holocaust Memorial Day, I will be sharing this week a few stories of women spiritual leaders who were murdered in the Nazi genocide. Today I am delighted to share my second guest post, in which my friend and teacher Shoshana Jedwab remembers her umgekumene (murdered) grandmother, Roiza Baila Czarnochapka Jedwabnik, may her…
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Beyle Shoyver’s childbirth mitsve
From Rabbi Tuvye Gutman Rapoport, ‘The biography of a generation’, Yizker-bukh Koriv, (1955) p. 674. In this section, Rapoport describes his own grandmother, Beyle Shoyver, who, as a religiously educated woman and great giver and organizer of charity, sometimes competed with Gitele the Koriv gabete for the reputation of most pious woman in town. Here he describes how, when…
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The women came into the synagogue wailing like a storm – a memory of the zogerkes in Tomashov
This is an extract from Sh. Leibovitsh ‘A krankn a refue’ – healing for the sick – in the Tomashov Lubelski Yizker Bukh (1965.) Leibovitz describes the process of ‘aynraysn’ – a word which in Yiddish literally means ‘to tear down’ but which was used to describe fervent prayer and lamentation, usually either by a graveside or…
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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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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…
Pulling at Threads 