Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold

Rokhl Kafrissen—journalist, teacher, playwright, and 2022 winner of the prestigious Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish prize—sits down with The Shmooze this week to talk about her upcoming Yiddish Book Center online course “Sacred Time and Liminal Space: Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold.” Rokhl talks about the unique Eastern European women’s folk magic ritual known as feldmestn: measuring a cemetery (and its graves) to make special holiday candles. In conversation she shares other traditions and tells how the course will also place a special emphasis on learning about these customs through short stories, particularly the work of Sarah Hamer Jacklyn.