How to measure a cemetery in Elul
According to the feldmesterins observed by S. Weissenberg, cemetery measuring was stepped up after the first selihah, being carried out...
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feldmesterin
- Sep 12
- 4 min
In the month of Elul
Yesterday, as the rain poured down over our group in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Rabbi Noam Lerman spoke about the importance of crying and...
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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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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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