'Examples of laments by children', collected by Moyshe Melman in Brestetshke (Beresteczko, Berestetchka, Brestetshke, ברסטצ'ק,...

This klogenish (lament) is one of several collected by the YIVO ethnographic commission in the 1920s and 30s. The full collection can be...

I'm getting ready today to teach my final class on this online course with JTS, in which we will be taking a closer look at the...

In the summer of 2018, my little sister Viv got married. Our mother died when she was 2 and I was 4, and I was incredibly honoured when ...

Translation of an excerpt from Abraham Rechtman, Yidishe Etnografye un Folklor, p. 289-298. Rav Yokhanan had the habit of coming to sit...

This week I've been teaching an online workshop at Yiddish New York about Ashkenazi Jewish women's customs and practices. For the past...

In many shtetlekh (small towns) of Eastern Europe, it was common for the female heads of household to pay feldmesterins to measure the...

According to the feldmesterins observed by S. Weissenberg, cemetery measuring was stepped up after the first selihah, being carried out...

The following text is an excerpt from A.S. Zaks' 'Khoreve Veltn' ­– Ruined Worlds ­– describing Jewish customs in the month of Elul - the...

Among the professions listed in this memorial book from Kremenets, Ukraine, between "goose plucker" and "mechanic", is "cemetery zogerke"...

This is an excerpt from the memoirs of Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport, published in the memorial book of Koriv, Poland Here he remembers...

According to the ethnographic study I posted recently, Yom Kippur candles made with threads that had been used to measure graves were...

From the memorial book of the town of Pruzhany, Poland, recorded by A Fayvushinsky.The text has very little punctuation (I've added a bit...

This is a translation of a 1906 German study of Feld (cemetery) and Keywer (grave - from the Hebrew and Yiddish קבֿר) measuring by...

In this extract from his 1899-1912 unfinished autobiographical novel, Shloyme Reb Khayims, Mendele describes his mother, Sore - who we...

This short description of the practise is found in the Yizker Bukh 'Pinkes fun der shtot Pruzhene' - a memorial book written by former...

Yiddish Poet Morris Rosenfeld, best known for his poems describing the hardships of Jewish immigrants in the US, wrote the following poem...