Every day I brought her to her place in the old cemetery, where it was her custom to sit on a bit of straw and beg for donations singing a nign from lamentations...
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In this extract from Mendele Moykher Sforim's Fishke der krumer, Fishke describes his wife, a blind orphan who makes her living by...
feldmesterin
- Jul 14
- 3 min
There are few particularly religious women in town ... who also measure the cemetery.
"Elul days" from Khaim Shoys, Dos Yontef Bukh (1933). Life goes on in the shtetl as usual. Yet, at the same time it is clear to anyone...
45 views1 comment
feldmesterin
- Dec 14, 2023
- 2 min
Sore-Rokhl "the fat" cemetery Jewess of Krinski
Since it's the last day of Khanike, when, in some communities, the left over "dead thread" from Yom Kippur would be used to make khanike...
287 views0 comments
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...
103 views0 comments
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 ...
284 views0 comments
feldmesterin
- Jan 27, 2023
- 2 min
Bobtshke Kilikovski Cohen, the zogerke who measured cemeteries
In the memorial book to the Jewish community of Volkovisk (Vawkavysk, Belarus), I found my second description of a real life...
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feldmesterin
- Jan 10, 2023
- 2 min
'The women came into the synagogue wailing like a storm' - a memory from Tomashov
This is an extract from Sh. Leibovitsh 'A krankn a refue' - healing for the sick - in the Tomashover Yizker Bukh (1965.) Leibovitz...
223 views2 comments
feldmesterin
- Dec 28, 2022
- 2 min
'Lost souls' from a 1928 ethnographic study
This is one section of a long article by H. Heyoys, published in YIVO's filologishe shriftn in 1928, entitled 'Beliefs and customs in...
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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
- 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"...
428 views0 comments
feldmesterin
- May 1, 2022
- 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...
216 views0 comments
feldmesterin
- Mar 7, 2021
- 3 min
Witches gotta eat
In Yiddish literature, the practices described on this website are often viewed disparagingly, especially when women used to do them for...
630 views1 comment
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