Tag: Prayer leaders
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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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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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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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“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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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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Petitioning the ancestors
In Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, people would visit the graves of deceased relatives not only as an act of remembrance, but to talk to them, ask them for blessings and present them with requests which they could take to God on behalf of the living. The practice, known in Yiddish as “geyn af keyver-oves”…
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Inviting the dead to our parties
In the summer of 2018, my little sister Viv got married. Our mother died when she was 2 and I was 4, and I was incredibly honoured when Viv asked me to take mum’s place under the khupe – the wedding canopy. It was only when we were all ready to walk her down the aisle that I suddenly…
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Gitele the pious gabete of Koriv
This is an excerpt from the memoirs of Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport, published in the memorial book of Koriv, Poland Here he remembers one particular character, Gitele di Gabete, who, acting as religious leader to the women of Koriv, used to, among other things, measure the town cemetery in times of crisis. ‘Gabete’ – the…
Pulling at Threads 