Among the professions listed in this memorial book from Kremenets, Ukraine, between "goose plucker" and "mechanic", is "cemetery zogerke" (p. 48). A word that might be translated as "preacheress", zogerke, zogerin, or firzogerin were titles often given to women prayer leaders, as well as to female elders, who, like professional mourning women or klogerins, were paid to lead prayer and ritual in the cemetery. This yizkor book names five different cemetery zogerkes.
As was the case in other communites, in the late 19th - early 20th century Kremenits seems to have had a 'head firzogerin', Leybeshekhe, described here by former resident H. Hoykhgelernter in an account of life in the shtetl on the eve of World War One. Naming Leybeshekhe as one of the most important 'Kremenits characters', Hoykhgelernter describes her as the female counterpart to Mendele the Shames [synagogue beadle or sexton] – just as the synagogue was Mendele’s realm, the cemeteries were Leybeshekhe's territory.
The following is an excerpt of my translation of H. Hoykhgelernter's description of Leybeshekhe the firzogerin. I have removed the full translation from this site, as it is due to be published in an upcoming source reader on women and gender in modern Jewish history.
Leybeshekhe the Firzogerin
Mendele the shames was at home with the dead in his synagogue, just as Leybeshekhe, the zogerke, was at home with them in her cemeteries, where she would deliberate with them heymish and intimately, as one does with God on Yom Kippur. Leybeshekhe the firzogerin quite literally managed – whether by debate, demand, or amicable persuasion – to get the dead to obey her wishes on a daily basis ...
... When she showed up at someone’s home, the children would hide themselves in a corner, not trusting themselves to look at her without staring for too long. Once she had finished drinking her glass of warm tea, Leybeshekhe would talk of her discussions with the dead just like other people spoke of conversations with the living. She talked about those who had been released from their suffering in the grave and now, in the world above, were able to accomplish the things we demand of them. She was on intimate terms with the dead and spoke to them as one would speak to the living.
If someone came to beg for forgiveness by their parents’ grave on a yortsayt or at a time of trouble, Leybeshekhe would lead them to the grave and would rap on the headstone with her stick, as if to wake the corpse. She would call the deceased by their name and announce the person who had come to visit them, at the same time filling them in on all their family’s news ...
... When an orphan came to invite the dead to their wedding on the day of the khupe ceremony, Leybeshekhe would present her arguments to the deceased soul with the greatest conviction. On such an occasion, either the bride or the groom would lean with their head on the tombstone and quietly weep. She, Leybeshekhe, would comfort the soul in their distress that they would not have the honour of leading their child to the khupe.
“Khaye” or “Reb Moyshe,” she said, “Your child has come to you to invite you to their wedding. Offer them a mazel tov, that they may be led to the khupe with good luck. May a child be born and named after you. Bless them there in heaven, with luck and with success.”
When, after a day like this this, Leybeshekhe would come to the house to tell us about what she had accomplished, everyone’s jaws dropped. People even envied her for her ability to talk to the dead like that, and for the fact that the dead obeyed her ...
... The ‘cemetery-Jewess’, as Leybeshekhe was known, had the honour of finding her resting place in America, in the cemetery in Chicago.
The front cover of the Kremenits, Vizhgorodek and Potshayev memorial book, artwork by Leon Pokh
Cite this source:
H. Hoykhgelernter, “Leybeshekhe the firzogerin”, Lerner, Falik (ed) Kremenits, Vizshgorodev un Potshayev : yizker-bukh (Buenos Aires, 1965). Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen. https://www.pullingatthreads.com/post/leybeshekhe-the-cemetery-jewess-of-kremenits
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