Tag: Prayers, Laments and Incantations
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The Cemetery Zogerins of Kremenets
Two zogerins, Golde and Reyze, lead prayers in the cemetery. The photo appears to date from the interwar period. Kremenits, Vizshgorodev un Potshayev : yizker bukh, (Buenos Aires, 1965) 123. One particularly rich source on cemetery prayer leaders known as zogerins or zogerkes is this yizker bukh dedicated to the pre-war Jewish communities of Kremenets,…
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Brayndl the Zogerin from Mendele Moykhe Sforim’s “Di Klyatshe”
In this short excerpt from Mendele Moykher Sforim’s Di Klyatshe (The Mare), the protagonist, Yisroylik, who has been suffering from hallucinations, wakes up to find himself being fussed over by his mother and a number of local healers, among them Brayndl, the local zogerin. A title meaning “reciter” “speaker” or “preacheress”, zogerins were women who led…
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“Today it is customary to go to the cemetery with an elderly Jewess”
The following is an excerpt from an article by Chaim Chajes, 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.…
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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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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…
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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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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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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…
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Feldmestn – Cemetery measuring by Morris Rosenfeld
A poem about cemetery measuring by Morris Rosenfeld, the “sweatshop bard” best known for his poems describing the hardships of Jewish immigrants in the US. The original Yiddish can be found here. Feld-mestn – Cemetery measuring Walking through the stones, old Mina, And behind her, Fesye-Tsveytl Mina cries and says the tkhine And Fesye lays the…
Pulling at Threads 