Betty Fagenson Lewis: My Autobiography, 1903 -- 1998
My Mother
My mother was a witch and she practiced witchcraft. Mysticism was the rule in our house. When she wanted to find out what was holding back the mail from Papa [Editors note: my grandfather was already in the US.], she would take out the baker's sifter, a sieve, a large round strainer, with a wood frame - before the mail was delivered. She would hold the sifter in a horizontal position and would place and open a pair of scissors to its capacity and dig each pointed tip into the wood on either side of the wood frame. The scissors would be held by two people lightly, each one holding on to one side of the scissors. Somehow or other, at times the sifter would revolve by itself. My mother at these times would attribute the movement to the coming of a letter from my father. Bubba Gittel would hold one side and my mother would hold the other side. My mother would say, Faygele, Faygele, vee dem taten? Dem taten vill shicken a brivele? Vill zehn a brivele frim dem taten? (Little bird, little bird, where is father? Will father send a letter? Will we see a letter from father?) Invariably, if the sieve moved, a letter from Papa would appear within the next few days.
My mother was a folk doctor in Wisoko-Litovsk. People would come to her to have their throats swabbed and to have their chests and backs cupped and other witcheries to make them well when they were ill. (The process of cupping was known as Shtellen Banckes - this was a process in which the inside of small glass cups, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and about 2 inches high were swabbed with alcohol; then a lit match was inserted within the cup and a vacuum created; then the cup was immediately put on the bare skin of the chest or back. The number of cups used depended upon the size of the area needing treatment). There was probably only one doctor throughout the entire village, and the people were forced to resort to witchcraft and folk medicine. My mother never used leeches although some people used these blood-suckers. If you had a cut or an infection, mother would gather the moldy residues from every crack in the wall and wrap it, wind it around the area of infection. In two days, it would be healed. It was called Poltava. In America, when we had a cold or if we didn't feel well, we got banckes.
In Wisoko-Litovsk, my mother would accompany her aunt (her father's sister) to deliver babies, and although she herself, at that time didn't do it, she observed and probably helped her aunt, and so she became proficient at delivery. Also, my mother always wore a large white apron. When some sick person came to her, my mother would take the ends of the apron and make accordion pleats, then take the mass of pleats and revolve them around the head of an afflicted person. This was supposed to drive out the evil spirits. (Editor's note: As a child in New York, I can remember my grandmother, with her apron's accordion pleats carefully folded, revolving that apron around my head, to help me get rid of an eye inflammation!)
In Wisoke-Litovsk, my mother had good relations with the non-Jewish population. First of all, she worked for them. Second of all, she believed that it didn't pay to be on bad terms with Goyim (non-Jews) - you had to get along with them.
When you were born, they put a little red ribbon to keep away the evil eye. Nidugedacht! (Don't even think it.); Nisht fahr diehr gedacht! (Literally: Not to be thought of in terms of you, but connotatively, It shouldn't happen to you!); Nisht fahr unzerer kinder gedacht! (Literally, Not to be thought of in terms of our children, but again, connotatively, It shouldn't happen to our children!) All this was said in referring to the evil eye, a superstitious belief that something bad is going to happen to you.
