Children lament their mother in Brestetshke
'Examples of laments by children', collected by Moyshe Melman in Brestetshke (Beresteczko, Berestetchka, Brestetshke, ברסטצ'ק,...
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feldmesterin
- Jun 6
- 3 min
A woman's lament for her husband
This klogenish (lament) is one of several collected by the YIVO ethnographic commission in the 1920s and 30s. The full collection can be...
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feldmesterin
- Nov 28, 2023
- 3 min
"Today it is customary to go to the cemetery with an elderly Jewess"
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...
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feldmesterin
- Oct 5, 2023
- 6 min
Inviting the dead to our parties - a post for Hoshanah Rabbah
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 ...
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feldmesterin
- Jan 1, 2023
- 11 min
"Incantations must not be taught to anyone"
Translation of an excerpt from Abraham Rechtman, Yidishe Etnografye un Folklor, p. 289-298. Rav Yokhanan had the habit of coming to sit...
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feldmesterin
- Dec 27, 2022
- 2 min
Woman soul
This week I've been teaching an online workshop at Yiddish New York about Ashkenazi Jewish women's customs and practices. For the past...
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feldmesterin
- Oct 4, 2022
- 5 min
How to make soul candles for Yom Kippur
In many shtetlekh (small towns) of Eastern Europe, it was common for the female heads of household to pay feldmesterins to measure the...
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feldmesterin
- Sep 18, 2022
- 4 min
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, 2022
- 4 min
And the Jewish women ... they knew how to go to war with Satan
The following text is an excerpt from A.S. Zaks' 'Khoreve Veltn' – Ruined Worlds – describing Jewish customs in the month of Elul - the...
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feldmesterin
- May 16, 2022
- 3 min
Leybeshekhe the 'Cemetery Jewess' of Kremenits
Among the professions listed in this memorial book from Kremenets, Ukraine, between "goose plucker" and "mechanic", is "cemetery zogerke"...
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feldmesterin
- May 2, 2022
- 4 min
Gitele the pious gabete of Koriv
This is an excerpt from the memoirs of Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport, published in the memorial book of Koriv, Poland Here he remembers...
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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...
276 views0 comments
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.The text has very little punctuation (I've added a bit...
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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
- 4 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 his mother, Sore - who we...
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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
- 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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