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    Leybeshekhe the 'Cemetery Jewess' of Kremenits
    feldmesterin
    • May 16
    • 7 min

    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...
    79 views0 comments
    Gitele the gabete part 2: how Gitele became known as the Koriv 'angel'
    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...
    26 views0 comments
    Gitele the pious Gabete of Koriv, part 1.
    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...
    77 views0 comments
    Shiphrah-Leah, the zogerke of Kletsk
    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...
    62 views0 comments
    Klogerins un baveynerins – Lamenting women and weeping women  - Abraham Rechtman
    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...
    77 views0 comments
    Some thoughts on Holocaust Memorial Day and why I Yiddish
    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...
    118 views0 comments
    Making soul candles for 5782
    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...
    179 views0 comments
    Double, Double, Mi un Tsores ...
    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...
    107 views0 comments
    Das Feld un das Keywermessen - cemetery and grave measuring - S. Weissenberg
    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...
    284 views0 comments
    The wailing women of the shtetl
    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...
    405 views0 comments
    Witches gotta eat
    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...
    394 views1 comment
    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...
    151 views0 comments
    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...
    172 views0 comments
    Feldmestn and Kneytlekh-leygn source sheet and ritual guide
    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...
    855 views0 comments
    Das Feld un das Keywermessen - S. Weissenberg
    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...
    347 views0 comments
    A tkhine for making Yom Kippur candles - extract from Mendele Moykher Sforim's 'Shloyme Reb Khayims'
    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,...
    202 views0 comments
    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...
    75 views0 comments
    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...
    77 views0 comments
    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 –...
    103 views0 comments
    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...
    71 views0 comments

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