#yiddishkeit

bobemajses:

A Jewish jester in Ukraine: Hershel of Ostropol

Herschel of Ostropol (1757–1811), a famous Jewish folk figure from modern-day Ukraine lived in poverty and targeted the rich and powerful, both Jew and Gentile. He is also remembered by Ukrainian Gentiles as something of an ethnic folk hero, who could take on establishment forces much larger than himself with nothing but his humor.

Eventually he found his calling—at the court of Barukh of Mezhybizh, the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. Barukh was plagued by depression, and Hershele served as a court jester, frequently mocking the rabbi and his cronies and delighting the common folk. It is believed that Hershele died of an accident that was brought about by one of Rabbi Boruch’s fits of anger. Hershele lingered for several days and died in Rabbi Boruch’s own bed surrounded by Rabbi Boruch and his followers. He is thought to be buried in the old Jewish cemetery in in Medzhybizh, though his grave is unmarked.

His stories were passed on in Poland and Russia until the middle of the 20th century. Ostropoler’s life and work found literary expression in various poems, novellas, children’s books and plays and are to this day an important part of Eastern European Jewish folklore.

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Ukrainian-jewish klezmer musicians.

zemestoun:

i forgot to post this earlier but heres a clip from the yiddish book center nimoy interview discussing the jewish origins of the vulcan salute!! you can watch the full interview here [x]

Dear [shul],

Please to not be repeatedly printing wrong havdalah times on the bulletin. And then dismiss people who raise it to and in the ritual committee. And then ignore the group of women who are trying to get your attention during announcements to tell you it’s wrong.

People rely on those. They bring them home, and they USE THOSE TIMES.

It makes me sad, but this really isn’t an environment I want to be a part of/feel comfortable in any more.

So I lost my original draft of this post (grr, Tumblr! No love!), but I wanted to get these things “down”, so to speak. Because I’ll forget, ALL too soon! MIKVA (and immediately after) DEETS.

• The night before, [sponsoring-rabbi] calls to see how I’m doing, and asks “so, wanna go out for one last cheeseburger”? Hee. I’m good. And more of a meat lovers’ pizza girl anyway ;-)

• Learning the prep run-down the night before with the kollel rebbetzin, who called me right after to make sure it had gone okay. She reminded me to actually DAVEN while in the water.
  

• The ALMOST freak-out around my nose ring not coming out, and the one regular beit din rabbi who was there not feeling comfortable making a decision because it would have to be their policy; so they went to the top at the RCA to figure out if they could rule it wasn’t a chatzitzah. Which they did.

• [Ima-extraordinaire] came with me. SO SPECIAL. If it were not for her and her family, I don’t know that I’d be here. They were my first exposure, my first standing Shabbat invitation, my safe space to learn and grow and figure it out without judgment or pressure, just pure unconditional support and love. Having her there was such a sweet recognition of the process coming full circle. The woman who taught me what it is to be a bat Yisrael, an Ima, who said “Amein” to my first shaky brachot, was there to say Amein when I said “v’tzivanu al ha’tevilah”. SO amazing.

• So we had a final beit din meeting in the waiting room. One of them asked me “so what’s special about today?” (it was also rosh chodesh Av). I started talking about spiritual rebirth, etc. etc., and he looks at me… and says “okay… and what about the rest of the world who DON’T know this is happening?!”. HA. OKAY YES 9 DAYS I SEE WHERE YOU ARE GOING WITH THIS I PROMISE!

• STILL being asked questions I didn’t immediately know the answer to. And then flipping it and talking about unpainted squares.

• The sweet shomeret giving me a tour, showing me where the resevoir was, and explaining how the contraption that would “cover” me while the beit din were in the room would work. The “checking” part was nowhere near as invasive as I thought it would be, and she was so nice and really put me at ease.
  

• The 3 questions once I was in the water (SUCH a comfortable temperature) and the beit din were in place… 1) do you commit to all the mitsvot - the ones you know, don’t know, understand, don’t understand;  2) do you commit to sending any children you may have to orthodox day school (!!!, okay, wow, that’s the ideal and I want to give them an education, absolutely, but this is a bigger conversation, can we maybe have that when I’m dressed?!), and 3) do you renounce all former philosophical beliefs/ideals etc.

• Wait they want me to dunk now? THIS IS IT OH MY GOSH. (”Koisher!”) - I was shaking while I said the bracha. The beit din, [sponsoring-rabbi] and [Ima-extraordinaire] all said Amein, then left. I dunked twice more and just kind of stood in the water to take it in for a second. The shomeret said to take all the time I needed.

• Got out, felt like my face was on fire, but SO HAPPY and couldn’t stop grinning! [Sponsoring-rabbi] read the paragraph giving me m name, then the beit din had me say shema. I stumbled a litle because of being totally overwhelmed, and plus it’s been a LONG time since I’ve *said* the words of v’ahavtarather than sung it.

• One of the stand-in rabbis commented about wishing me hatslacha but that he could tell by my personality that I wouldn’t need it, or something to that effect..!

• Went next door to shul where people were hanging out cooking for an event on shabbat and got hugs, said a bracha that OTHER PEOPLE WERE YOTZEI ON, and got more hugs.
  

• Atshul that night (kabbalat shabbat), [sponsoring-rabbi] wished me mazal tov again and said that I was “glowing” and had been since getting out of the water. My response? It’s sunburn. :P

I’m sure there’s more and I’ll add to this/add a second post, but wanted to get this up before too much longer.

I am so, so priviliged, and blessed, and HAPPY to have made it through this process.