This is an excerpt from the memoirs of Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport, published in the memorial book of Koriv, Poland Here he remembers one particular character, Gitele di Gabete, who, acting as religious leader to the women of Koriv, used to, among other things, measure the town cemetery in times of crisis. 'Gabete' - the female form of the Hebrew 'Gabbai' – was a title given to women who served as communal functionaries, gathering charity for those in need and sometimes also serving the women of their communities as ritual leaders and religious experts. According to Gutman Rapoport, Gitele acted as the women's 'rebbe', and her presence was even believed to protect the town from the frequent fires that had plagued it before her arrival. Attesting to the importance of these female religious leaders in Ashkenazi Jewish life, he describes this period of Jewish history as the 'gabete epoch'.
The digitised Yizkor book is available online here. This passage, about Gitele the Gabete, begins on page 680.
Note: this is an excerpt of my full translation, which is due to be published in an upcoming source reader on women and gender in Jewish History.
Gitele the pious gabete
The subject of bygone gabetes, zogerkes, klogerkes, [mourning women] and ayin-hore farshprekherkes, has quite a considerable history. The ‘gabete-epoch’ was rich with such interesting female characters, around whom developed a most juicy and delightful shtetl folklore. Here, however, I will simply describe Koriv’s ‘Gitele the Gabete’, in a story that is also connected to my grandmother’s biography.
Gitele the Gabete was not a full-blown Koriver, she came from the nearby shtetl Vonvolits [Wawolnica]. There, God preserve us, she was widowed, and came to Koriv to live with one of her daughters. Upon her arrival in Koriv she quickly made a name for herself among all the women as a very important tsadikes - a righteous woman. And she really was a very pious and God-fearing woman. She prayed three times a day – and collectively at that, in the women’s section of the synagogue – and she was also very learned. She had a mountain of tkhines (yiddish prayers) of all kinds, for every possible problem, and knew all of them almost by heart. She also fasted on Mondays and Thursdays for her whole life. She was the only person in Koriv who measured the cemetery.
The custom of measuring the cemetery
Such was the matter of measuring the cemetery:
If someone’s child – God forbid – became unwell, one usually began by exorcising a ‘good eye’ (as an evil eye was called euphemistically). If that didn’t help, the feldsher (healer) was called (there was no doctor in Koriv at that time). If the healer’s remedies also didn’t help, people ran into the synagogue, said prayers and cried by the open ark, and if the situation – God forbid – really became very bad, they had to turn to the last resort – they ran to measure the cemetery.
The procedure of measuring the cemetery was as follows:
Two women went to the cemetery fence (boundary). They had with them a very long thread (the thread could not be the kind used by tailors but was that wool thread with which socks were mended. The thread had also been endowed with supernatural powers through an incantation). When both women arrived at the cemetery edge, they stopped and took the big ball of thread out of one of their pockets. One of them took one end of the thread, held it firmly in her hand, and, in order to keep it strong and precise, tied it around her finger. The other woman started to walk around the edge of the cemetery with the thread in her hand and continued in this way until the two women came together. Then they tied the two ends together, encircling the cemetery.
While tying the ends, they said the following prayer:
Raboyne shel oylem, azoy vi mir beyde hobn getsoygn dem fodem mit undzer gantsn koyekh, un der fodem iz nisht ibergerisn gevorn, azoy zoln botl vern ale beyze koykhes. Dem tayern kinds lebn zol kholile nisht ibergerisn vern.
Master of the universe, since we both pulled the thread with all our power, and the thread was not broken, shall all evil powers come to naught. The dear child’s life shall not – God forbid – be cut short.
Measuring the cemetery was a task undertaken only by Gitele the gabete. As long as she lived, she was the only cemetery measurer, although she usually brought her deputy-gabete with her as assistant.
What happened during cemetery measuring?
One time, Gitele’s ritual was almost ruined by a stroke of bad luck. She was measuring the cemetery for a very sick child, and as she was about to tie the two ends of thread and was saying her famous prayer, the thread suddenly snapped in two! It was almost an affirmation that a child would – God forbid – leave this world. But Gitele – a skilled gabete with a sharp mind and an eloquent tongue – quickly thought of something on the spot, varying her prayer without skipping a beat:
Raboyne shel oylem! Azoy vi der fodem hot zikh ibergerisn, azoy zol ibergerisn vern der beyzer gzardi’n
Master of the universe! Just as the thread was broken, shall the menacing decree of punishment also be broken!
Gitele’s good name grew to such an extent that, with time, the women of the town no longer called her by the usual title ‘gabete’ but rather ‘Gitele di malekhte’ – Gitele the angel.
(Image of the Koriv cemetery, taken from the Yizkor Book)
Cite this text: Gitele the pious gabete of Koriv. Excerpt from Rabbi Tuviah Gutman Rapoport ‘Parents and grandparents and the biography of a generation’, Yizker Bukh Koriv, (Tel Aviv, 1955). Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen.
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