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About this Event
Soul Candles for Yom Kippur
Part 1: Sunday Sept. 11 - Mt. Carmel Cemetary - 3-6pm (Rain date Sunday Sept. 18)
- Accessibilty: Participants will be walking on uneven grass and possibly chipped stone stairs in order to access our gathering spaces. For those who prefer not to sit on the ground, we encourage you to bring a camping chair.
Part 2: Sunday, Oct 2
North End of Prospect park (Rain location: Union Temple Center across from the library)
- Accessibilty: If outdoors, we will be gathering in a mostly flat grassy area a short walk from Grand Army Plaza Entrance. If indoors, program space will include chairs and be accessible by elevator.
For centuries, Jewish women in Eastern Europe measured cemeteries and graves with thread. They used the threads to make special neshome likht [soul candles], or in some cases, protection bands worn around the wrists, ankles, or neck. Often carried out by experienced women known as feldmesterins, who were also often paid for their work, feldmestn [cemetery measuring] and kneytlekh leygn [laying wicks] were most commonly performed during Elul, to make soul candles for Yom Kippur. Yet they also turned to the practice at other times when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead seemed to be thinning. Even today, with all of our science, all of our knowledge, ritual technology still anchors us in times of vulnerability.
During the month of vulnerability for Jews and on a day of intense tragedy for New York City, join us as we revive this Eastern European practice in the cemetery where so many of the great thinkers of that region were laid to rest.
Part 1 - Elul - Sept. 11 - will take place in Mt. Carmel Cemetary in Queens (google maps pin here; additional directions will be emailed to registered participants). We will use cotton wicks to measure the cemetery which will be later used to make soul candles for Yom Kippur. Participants will be guided and each take part in the literal practice of measuring as well as the ritual components including the recitation of tekhines (Yiddish supplicatory prayers).
Our group will likely also visit “Beth Olam” cemetary, a short walk from Mt. Carmel.
Part 2 - Tishrei - Oct 2 - will take place in Brooklyn on the Sunday between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, which is when soul candles were traditionally made. We will use the wick from our cemetary measuring to make large candles in groups, dedicating them to the living and the dead in the coming year. We will also learn the tekhines (prayers)specifically written for making these candles.
Note: Registration includes program and materials for both the feldmestn [cemetery measuring] in Elul/September and the kneytlekh leygn [laying wicks] in Tishrei/October.
Program fee is $25 per person, with a limited number of "pay what you can" tickets available until Sept 1.
Participants who attend part 1, but who are unable to attend Part 2 will receive instructions and materials for making their candles at home.
People who aren’t able to attend Part 1 are still welcome to join Part 2.
Read more about this ritual here: https://www.pullingatthreads.com/feldmestn-soul-candles
About Your presenters:
Sarah Chandler aka Kohenet Shamirah is a Brooklyn-based Jewish educator, artist, activist, healer, and poet. She teaches, writes and consults on issues related to Judaism, earth-based spiritual practice, respectful workplaces, mindfulness, and farming. An ordained Kohenet with the Hebrew Priestess Institute and a trainer for “Taamod: Stand Up!”, she is also is an advanced student of Kabbalistic dream work at The School of Images.
Previously, Sarah served as the Director of Romemu Yeshiva, Chief Compassion Officer of Jewish Initiative for Animals, and Director of Earth Based Spiritual Practices at Hazon's Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.
Currently, she is the CEO of Shamir Collective, as a coach and consultant to high profile artists and authors to launch new music and books.
Annabel Cohen is a second year PhD student in Modern Jewish Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a Kohenet in training. She is originally from the UK where she completed a BA and MRes in History. Her current research focuses on the history of the Eastern European Jewish left.
Before moving to New York to undertake her PhD, Annie spent two years in Paris conducting research and studying at the Paris Yiddish Center, on their Immersive Yiddish language and literature program. It was there that she started working on her first translations relating to feldmestn – cemetery measuring – and other women’s rituals from Eastern Europe. She now publishes these translations on a blog, www.pullingatthreads.com, some of which are also featured in her published essay in Strange Fire: Jewish Voices from the Pandemic (Ben Yehuda Press, 2021.)
Since 2019, Annie have been teaching Yiddish for the London-based minority-language school Babel’s Blessing. Last summer she taught Yiddish language at Yiddish Summer Weimar, where she also ran a workshop on feldmestn that was featured in the Forverts. This summer she will be teaching beginners Yiddish at the Klez Kanada Digital Intensive as a Freed Fellow. She has also recently been accepted to the Yiddish Book Center’s 2022-2023 Pedagogy Fellowship.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Mount Carmel Cemetery, 83-45 Cypress Hills Street, Queens, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 25.00
