Candles, Herbs and Amulets in the Cemetery

Description

Historically, the cemetery was an important meeting place for Jewish community members. In Haketía, a Moroccan and Algerian variant of Judeo-Spanish, the verb zorear means to visit the cemetery and pray at the graves. A related word, ziara, refers to the gathering held on the one year anniversary of a death, which took place in the cemetery. Visiting graves is a Jewish custom across the diaspora. In Yiddish there is a similar term: “geyn af keyver-oves” – “going to ancestral graves.” People would go to the cemetery to pray at the graves of their beloved dead, to give and accept Tzedakah, and to take part in various Jewish rituals, from measuring wicks, to harvesting herbs, to laying garlic on graves. In this class we will learn together about some of the Jewish ritualists who worked in the cemetery and explore diverse Jewish folk traditions historically practiced in the cemetery in Jewish communities across the diaspora.