30 September 2014

Tombstone Tuesday: Pesi bat Ze-eiv, Labun Cemetery

In June of 2013 I had the pleasure of visiting Ukraine and Labun (now Yurovshchina; once called Lubin in Yiddish), my paternal grandparents' community. We were able to visit the old Jewish cemetery, which I discussed in an earlier post. Over the next several Tuesdays I will post photos and translations (as I am able to decipher) of tombstones from that cemetery. Most do not feature surnames.


Here lies
an old innocent woman[1]
Pesi daughter of
Ze-eiv died
25 Adar
5675
May her soul be bound in eternal life

With the Jewish Calendar Conversion application from the Steve Morse One-Step website, the 25th day of the month Adar in the year 5675 would correlate with 11 March 1915 in our (Gregorian calendar) and 26 February 1915 in the Julian calendar, which was in effect at the time of Pesi's death.

Note:
1. Special thanks to an assortment of knowledgeable linguists and genealogists who rose to the occasion and answered my query on Tracing the Tribe FaceBook page. While I could tell that the first line on the main area of the epitaph showed אשה (isha), which means woman, I was unsure of the line immediately after that. Yakov Pytkowicz explained that the first letter, ת, is an abbreviated form of the word
תמה (tama), meaning innocent. And the next word is וּזקנה (uzkena), which means old. So, the translation is "an old innocent woman." Zev Siberiano then pointed out that the word tama also connotes perfection and completeness, as well as innocence. Pesi must have been a lovely woman.

3 comments:

  1. The friends on Tracing the Tribe Facebook group are great. I find it interesting and helpful when they respectfully disagree with each other on interpreting a Hebrew letter or translation.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment, Elizabeth. Interestingly, the conversation this time went in one direction and then did a u-turn when Yakov put his two cents in. Guess, his FB posts speak from authority.

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  2. Hi Emily, I wanted you to know that I have nominated you and your blog for the One Lovely Bog Award. http://carolinafamilyroots.blogspot.com/2014/10/one-lovely-blog-award.html

    ReplyDelete

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