[00:00:01] Welcome to "What's new? What's next? Jewish studies in the time of a pandemic.". My name is Jeffrey Shandler and today I will be speaking about "A khasene afn besoylem" - a wedding in the cemetery. A short story by the Yiddish writer Joseph Opatoshu. The story written in 1929 describes what is variously known as a kholere khasene, a cholera wedding or shvartse khasene, a black wedding, or mageyfe khasene, a plague wedding. This is an Eastern European Jewish ritual in which the marriage of two poor, disabled or otherwise unfortunate people was performed in a cemetery in the belief that their Union would bring about the end of an epidemic. This practice rests on an age-old assumption that outbreaks of a disease or a divine punishment for wrongdoing which calls for an act of atonement or an affirmation of faith as the remedy. Holding the wedding in a cemetery, which of course was very unusual, was done to enable the dead to serve as Witnesses so that they could then intervene on the afflicted communities behalf in heaven. Joseph Opatoshu the story's author, was born in M³awa, Poland in 1886 and he emigrated to New York in 1907. There he became a prolific writer contributing hundreds of stories to the Yiddish Daily newspaper of they've talked. Opatoshu was also acclaimed as a novelist writing major Works of historical fiction set in Eastern Europe as well as accounts of contemporary immigrant life in America. His best-known works, all of which have been translated into English are the novels Roman fun a ferd-ganev (Romance of a Horse Thief) In poylishe velder (In Polish Woods), and A tog in Regensburg (A Day in Regensburg) and Opatoshu died in 1954. 

[00:02:08] Opatoshu depiction of a kholere khasene is less well known to readers of Yiddish literature than the account of this ritual that appears in S.Y. Abramovitsh's late 19th century novel Fishke der krumer (Fishke the Cripple). Like Abramovitsh, Opatoshu presents the kholere khasene as a strange example of old-fashioned folk beliefs and both Arthur's critique the rituals exploitation of the class divide between the rich Jews who make the wedding and the poor ones who are depicted as the victims of this runt of appeasement. But Opatoshu also offers a distinct perspective on the kholere khasene, which I will discuss after reading the story which begins now. A Wedding in the Cemetery. THE ENTIRE JEWISH COMMUNITY, over ten thousand people, were imprisoned in their homes. They were afraid to be out on the street or in the marketplace, where the gutters had been spread with lime. Their sealed-up houses and windows testified that the epidemic spared no one, young or old, poor or rich. Family after family stood beside their shuttered windows. They gazed fearfully at the stretchers and wept as they were borne away, carrying patients to the hospitals. As the wailing of family members gradually diminished and then stopped completely, the streets grew emptier, more silent. It was rumored that no one taken to the hospital ever returned home.Once again, mothers brought out their bottles of phenol, which were marked with the Angel of Death carrying his scythe, and began to dampen the heads of their terrified children, then washed their hands and warned them, “For heaven’s sake, children, don’t eat any fresh fruit, don’t drink any fresh water. In these times, the less you eat, the less you drink, the healthier you will be. If you drink at all, it must be water that has been boiled. Such an affliction, such a bitter affliction!”

[00:04:17] The epidemic grew stronger, attacking like a well-armed enemy, moving from one street to the next. There wasn’t a single house in the city without someone who had the disease. The members of the burial society were exhausted, drained of all their strength, as corpses lay out for four to five days, waiting to be prepared for burial. The study houses were packed with frightened men. They fasted, wept, held meetings.  Laments resounded throughout the city: “We’ve never experienced such a bitter affliction.” “It’s a massacre, a real massacre.” “No one is spared—not Jews, not Christians. And even the cows and goats have stopped giving us milk.” The city’s Hasidic leader, the rabbi, the rabbinical court, and leading members of the Jewish community stayed up through the night, seeking a way to halt the epidemic, to rid themselves of this affliction. Then, on the morning of the fourth Friday since the start of the epidemic, the entire city, young and old, learned that, in the cemetery that afternoon, the hunchback Shloyme—a freeloader who hung about the study house—would take as his bride Berl the schoolteacher’s daughter Brokhe, a young woman who was disabled.Everyone in the city poured into the street. They were no longer afraid of the people who carried stretchers with invalids through back alleys, who had been avoided as if they were lepers. The Jewish community leaders took over the streets and the marketplace, assuring everyone that they now had the Angel of Death by the throat and that, before the start of the Sabbath that evening, the epidemic will have ended. 

[00:06:05] The richest women in town put on their long diamond earrings and heavy gold chains. Their husbands, dressed in caftans of silk and satin and wearing fur-trimmed hats, distributed alms to the poor. Crowds of people, young and old, wearing their holiday finery, set out to the old graveyard.  Christians, who had been parading through the streets every day with icons and statues, doing everything possible to stop the epidemic, now stopped their efforts and hoped that the “Jewish God” would end the plague. Hundreds, thousands of people gathered in the field by the cemetery. They arrayed themselves at the fence—men and women, old and young—their grim faces and sorrowful eyes revealing that this was more a funeral than a wedding. No one arrived empty-handed. People brought items of clothing for the groom and the bride as well as linens and household items. A coach drew up with the couple and their parents. The groom was so tall and thin that it almost appeared as though he would snap in two when he walked. Under his silk caftan, the hump on his back looked like it was attached to him, because hunchbacks aren’t usually so tall. He looked bewildered. His wide face was bony with red tufts of beard, and riddled with pockmarks; it looked like a cemetery in which the graves had been dug up and the corpses had fled. The bride was thin, wiry, with such red lips and cheeks that it seemed as if they were painted. She had barely any hair on her head, on which a white paper flower had been placed. Her right hand was shorter than the left one and was withered, ending in a small fist like that of a three-year-old child.

[00:07:56] Across the length of the field, the crowd of thousands of heads leaned forward as it came to the fence. “Where are they taking them? Are they already under the wedding canopy?” “No, they’re going into the gravedigger’s house.” “And where will they seat the bride before the ceremony?” “In there.” The hot, summer sun stood in the sky, beaming down on the people and the grass. The sky was so blue and clear that one could see for miles into the distance. At the gate of the cemetery, two large tables were set up for wedding gifts: one for money, the other for presents. The city’s most esteemed men and women stood around the tables and lit dozens of candles, which were set in boxes filled with sand and earthenware pots. The flames stretched up to the sun, becoming one with the blue sky, and the garments of silk and satin gleamed with the light reflected from the blazing candles. The head of the burial society, an old man with eyebrows that obscured his eyes, rapped on the table with his cane and called out in a sanctimonious tone, “Family of the groom, family of the bride, people of the entire city: Bring forth your wedding gifts!”. The crowd did not stir, but stood as breathless as if this were the eve of Yom Kippur. Their eyes bulged as they stared at the empty tables. Rich, poor, or in-between—death had erased all social distinctions, and each person was afraid to be the first one to step forward. Then a woman, a beggar dressed in rags, approached. With eyes full of fear, she glanced at the crowd, then at the men standing at the table, astonished that she was the first. The head of the burial society motioned to her with his cane. As the woman limped forward, she withdrew from her bundle a new tin spoon. 

[00:09:56] She held it over her head and waved it around once, twice, as if she were performing the atonement ritual for Yom Kippur. Then she placed it on the table and cried out, “May it go away from me and stay with you! From me, to you!”  The crowd surged forward between the boxes of candles. They tossed down their gifts and money, and each one repeated, “From me, to you!” The tables groaned under the weight of the wedding gifts, which piled up over an hour, then two. And the air, melting under the flaming sun and the hundreds of burning candles, was flooded with tears and with the cry:  “From me, to you!” “From me, to you!” Off to one side stood the town architect. He had set up a camera to take pictures. The crowd pleaded with him: “Don’t do it, Mister!” “We beg you!” The architect laughed and started to argue with them. Then a man, a Jew, grabbed the camera off its tripod and tossed it into the air. Another man, a Christian, caught it like a ball and tossed it further. Before long, it was smashed to bits. The police feigned ignorance of what was going on and quietly suggested, “Break his bones, the son of a bitch—then he’ll know what it means to work for the Devil.”  All around, voices shouted, “To the wedding canopy! To the wedding canopy!” Thousands of candles flickered, and the crowd looked around to find the wedding musicians. Then it grew quiet. Women dressed in silk and satin, with pearls and golden chains around their throats, leapt forward with every bend and turn. They moved among the tombstones, dancing their way to the tomb where a revered Hasidic leader was interred. Their shawls of black and white silk fluttered, then fell on the limping beggarwoman. Looking disheveled, like a witch, she raised her voice in a song that rose over all the others. 

[00:11:51] She sang louder and louder, over one woman, then another, resounding in the air: “From me, to you!” The wedding canopy had been set up at the tomb. The tall, gangly groom, wearing a high fur hat, covered his eyes with his hand. Under his black silk caftan he wore a white ceremonial robe with wide sleeves. The rabbi, the Hasidic leader, and the members of the rabbinical court stood around, impatiently asking again and again, “Where is the bride?”. The bride, dressed in white and covered with a veil, approached from a distance. The limping beggarwoman danced in front of her, carrying a loaf of challah in both hands. Every once in a while she stopped and blurted out, through thick, fleshy lips, “From me, to you!” Accompanied by a soft melody, the bride was led with dancing steps under the canopy. She looked about and grew terrified. She raised her withered hand and looked as if she were about to flee, then stopped, and exclaimed in a thin voice, “Our neighbor won’t be able to stand it! She’s so jealous, she was always teasing me that I’ll never get married.” The people who had led her to the canopy tried to calm her: “Hush, hush, Brokhe, a bride mustn’t speak now.” Brokhe tore the groom’s hand away from his face and stared at him, the way a child stares at a new doll, and then she turned away. “But that’s Shloyme—that good-for-nothing Shloyme is my groom? No, no, no!” Her voice became a thin, sharp cry, rising over the thousands of bowed heads, reaching up to the blazing sky. And that's how the story ends the very abrupt conclusion, which I will discuss shortly. But first you may wonder what was the basis for Opatoshu's detailed account of this khalere khasane what we don't know for sure. We do know that he was in Poland in 1929 the year that the story first appeared.

[00:13:56] And it is possible that he either witnessed or heard about a kholere khasane at that time. It's also possible. Double that up Itachi you heard about one or more of these rituals while growing up in Poland as they were unusual events. Sometimes they were written up in the Jewish press and people also talked about them for years after they took place. We also know that at the time the story was written scholars in Eastern Europe were collecting and Publishing information about this and other unusual Jewish traditions. Opatoshu clearly shared this interest in Jewish folklore. In fact, in his story, he draws parallels between the kholere khasane and another traditional ritual called schlagen Kapoor has a pre-Yom Kippur ritual of atonement still practiced by some Jews of symbolically transferring one sins to a chicken which is then slaughtered and given as a meal to feed the poor before the start of the holiday. I find one of the more remarkable elements of this story the brief episode involving the architect and his camera. What are we to make of this one seems to me that the camera is a sign of modernity and it stands in contrast to the kholere khasane which is presented as decidedly unmodern if not anti-modern even though it was still practice if seldom in the 20th century. The camera and its owner, the architect exemplify the skeptical scrutiny of a cultural outsider his is a modern profession and although it isn't stated, it's most likely that he's a Christian. The community at the cemetery Jews and Christians alike try to prevent him from documenting the event and it's not clear why they do so. Do they think photographing will somehow interfere with the ritual are they concerned about being held up to ridicule, 

[00:15:50] but then when the architect doesn't comply with their request they break his camera and thereby destroy this modern skeptical gaze upon the ritual that they believe will save them. We might also think of the architect with his camera as analogous to the stories narrator as an eyewitness to this event. The narrator also casts a sceptical eye on the ritual but goes unnoticed by the crowd. The stories abrupt ending is also striking and not only leaves us wondering what would happen next. It also offers a remarkable act of protest against the kholere khasane as it comes from someone who is situated at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Brokhe, the intended bride is young female, poor and disabled but it seems that she may have called the proceedings to a halt. Like Opatoshu, we too may be dubious about the kholere khasane as an effective response to an epidemic. Still, at this present moment when most religious leaders tell their followers to avoid congregating and lifecycle rituals are being conducted online. It is worth recalling the appeal of this collective response to an epidemic even though it might now be dismissed as being at best magical thinking as a response that is rooted in fervent belief in the healing powers of communal rituals and Union with the supernatural.

 
[00:17:22] Thank you for listening to what's new. What's Next. Jewish Studies in the Time of Pandemic. Check out POLIN Museum's website for new podcasts in this series. For regular updates email GEOP at POLIN dot P, L. That's GEOP G,E, O, P at POLIN dot P, L.

[00:25:38] This podcast series is a part of the Global Education Outreach Program supported by Taube Philanthrophies, the William K. Bowes Junior Foundation and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland.