Online talk with the Workers Circle: The forgotten Yom Kippur rituals of Ashkenazi Jewish women

Sunday, September 22, 2024
1 p.m. EDT (6pm London, 7pm Paris.)
Free, registration required at https://www.circle.org/events/rituals

“They were like the witches from Macbeth, but a Yiddish, folksy version” – the forgotten Yom Kippur rituals of Ashkenazi Jewish women.

In the month of Elul, and particularly in the week running up to Rosh Hashone Jewish women in Eastern Europe used to measure the cemetery with thread in a ritual known in Yiddish as feldmestn. In between Rosh Hashone and Yom Kippur, the thread from these measurements would be used to make candle wick for huge candles known as neshome likht  – soul candles. Lit on the eve of Yom Kippur, these candles were believed to create a special connection with the dead, who could advocate with God on behalf of the living, to help them receive a good divine judgement on the Day of Atonement.

In this online talk, Annabel Gottfried Cohen, a Yiddish teacher with the Workers Circle, historian and researcher of these women’s practices will talk about the history of these very popular rituals, as well as the efforts being made to revive them today.

Publications and interviews

• ‘Priestesses of the Shtetl? The Jewish Women Spiritual Leaders of Eastern  Europe’, Feminism and Religion, 23 June 2024
• Sarah Biskowitz, ‘The Past and Future of Yiddish Spirituality’, Gashmius Magazine, (2023)
• ‘Gravewalkers’ in T.S. Mendola, Jewish Voices from the Pandemic (Ben Yehuda Press, 2021)
• Making Soul Candles : a female-led Jewish ritual revived’, Forward (Sep. 2020.) 
• ‘The forgotten women’s rituals of Yom Kippur’, Vashti Media (Sep. 2020)

In Yiddish: 

• ‘Ikh lern studentn an altn froyen minheg far yom-kiper’, Forverts, Sep. 2021.
• ‘A traditsioneler minheg gefirt fun froyen : feldmestn un kneytlekh-leygn’, Forverts, Sep. 2020 

For my other publications not related to this subject, visit my about page 

Past events, classes and lectures 

• Threading Stones, an Elul tradition: a six part online course with Ritualwell, co-taught with Sarah Chandler and Eleonore Weill.
• How to talk to the dead in Yiddish – the practices of feldmestn (cemetery measuring) and kneytlekh-leygn (soul candle making): a five part online class for intermediate Yiddish speakers with the Workers Circle.
• Priestesses of the Shtetl : a six part online course with Beit Kohenet, January – February 2024
• Midwives, Exorcists, and Shamanesses: Female Ritual Leaders of the Shtetl: a six-part online course with the Jewish Theological Seminary 
• Threading Stones: Soul Candles for Elul, with Shamir Collective, The Workers’ Circle and Shomer Collective, Mount Carmel Cemetery, August 2023. Click here to see a video of this in-person workshop. 
• ‘Forgotten Eastern European Jewish women’s rituals and customs’, guest lectures at Georgetown University, Yale University, City College New York, and Wheaton College, March-April 2023. 
• ‘Wailing to mark three years of the pandemic’, online with Kalil Cohen, Tony Westbrook jr., and Noam Lerman. March 2023. 
• ‘Threading Stones’, an in-person workshop with The Neighborhood, Brooklyn, at Greenwood Cemetery, March 2023. 
• ‘Vayberishe Zababones’ – a four-part workshop on women’s customs and superstitions, Yiddish New York, December 2022. 
• ‘Soul Candles: Honoring Ancestors in Elul’, High Holidays at Home, Sept. 2022
• ‘Soul Candles: a pre-Yom Kippur ritual in two parts’, Shamir Collective, Sept. – Oct.  2022