Leybeshekhe the 'Cemetery Jewess' of Kremenits
Zogerke, Zogerin and Firzogerin, are all female forms of Zoger – announcer or preacher, and are usually used to denote a female prayer...
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feldmesterin
- May 4
- 4 min
Gitele the gabete part 2: how Gitele became known as the Koriv 'angel'
Continued translation from Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport's 'Biography of a generation' in the Koriv Yizkor Book. See part 1 for a...
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feldmesterin
- May 2
- 4 min
Gitele the pious Gabete of Koriv, part 1.
I found the following description of a feldmesterin and gabete (female community functionary) in the Yizkor book of Koriv, a shtetl near...
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feldmesterin
- May 1
- 1 min
Shiphrah-Leah, the zogerke of Kletsk
In the Yizker (memorial) book written by former residents of the shtetl Kletsk, now in Belarus, I found the following short description...
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feldmesterin
- Apr 29
- 4 min
Klogerins un baveynerins – Lamenting women and weeping women - Abraham Rechtman
What follows is an excerpt of an ethnographic memoir - Yidishe etnografye un folklor (Jewish ethnography and folklore) – written in 1958...
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feldmesterin
- Jan 28
- 3 min
Some thoughts on Holocaust Memorial Day and why I Yiddish
Yesterday I gave a guest class on the Holocaust for a synagogue I used to work at in London. I showed them lots of examples from my own...
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feldmesterin
- Sep 15, 2021
- 9 min
Making soul candles for 5782
The first time I measured a cemetery, I did it on impulse. I was visiting the shtetl in Lithuania that my family were from and, finding...
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feldmesterin
- Sep 12, 2021
- 2 min
Double, Double, Mi un Tsores ...
According to the ethnographic study I posted recently, Yom Kippur candles made with threads that had been used to measure graves were...
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feldmesterin
- Aug 29, 2021
- 6 min
Das Feld un das Keywermessen - cemetery and grave measuring - S. Weissenberg
This is a translation of a 1906 German study of Feld (cemetery) and Keywer (grave - from the Hebrew and Yiddish קבֿר) measuring by...
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feldmesterin
- May 14, 2021
- 10 min
The wailing women of the shtetl
In his memoir Khoreve veltn, written in an effort to preserve in memory the customs of the Jewish shtetlekh of Lithuania destroyed during...
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feldmesterin
- Mar 7, 2021
- 4 min
Witches gotta eat
'Feldmesterin’ sometimes appears alongside other ‘superstitious’ female trades, including witchcraft. Here are two examples from maskilic...
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feldmesterin
- Jan 14, 2021
- 2 min
An ayin-hore incantation, to exercise an evil eye from a child
From the memorial book of the town of Pruzhany, Poland, recorded by A Fayvushinsky. Incantations like this one are often purposefully...
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feldmesterin
- Sep 15, 2020
- 2 min
Rachel's tomb as protection against an evil eye
In kneytlakh-leygn and feldmestn, it seems that it was believed that by laying the candle wicks around the cemetery they would be imbued...
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feldmesterin
- Sep 12, 2020
- 1 min
Feldmestn and Kneytlekh-leygn source sheet and ritual guide
Feldmestn and kneytlekh-leygn were most commonly practised in the month of Elul to make Yom Kippur, particularly during the days of...
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feldmesterin
- May 31, 2020
- 5 min
Das Feld un das Keywermessen - S. Weissenberg
This is a translation of a 1906 German study of Feld (cemetery) and Keywer (grave - from the Hebrew and Yiddish קבֿר) measuring by...
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feldmesterin
- May 31, 2020
- 5 min
A tkhine for making Yom Kippur candles - extract from Mendele Moykher Sforim's 'Shloyme Reb Khayims'
In this extract from his 1899-1912 unfinished autobiographical novel, Shloyme Reb Khayims, Mendele describes the protagonist's mother,...
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feldmesterin
- May 31, 2020
- 2 min
Extract from Salomon Maimon's lebnsgeshichte
18th century Lithuanian Jewish philosopher, Salomon Maimon, mentions the practise of feldmestn in his memoirs written in 1792-3. In an...
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feldmesterin
- May 31, 2020
- 1 min
Mestn Feld - a memory from Pruzhany (Pruzhene), Poland
This short description of the practise is found in the Yizker Bukh 'Pinkes fun der shtot Pruzhene' - a memorial book written by former...
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feldmesterin
- May 25, 2020
- 2 min
Chapter 4: Stesye and Gnesye - From Moyshe Kulbak's 1926 novel Montok - 'Monday'.
The two little old ladies, who Mordechai Markus saw and started at through his window. Two little old ladies, two cemetery measurers –...
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feldmesterin
- May 25, 2020
- 1 min
Feld-mestn by Morris Rosenfeld
Yiddish Poet Morris Rosenfeld, best known for his poems describing the hardships of Jewish immigrants in the US, wrote the following poem...
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