20th century, Europe, fictive fool, Germany, Hebrew / Yiddish, primary source, quotes, stories
From a late 20th century novel set in a concentration camp, the story highlights the fearlessness (or recklessness) of court fool types, including in this case, dwarfs. Here a character alludes to the ease with which a dwarf might hide under a table and, in knowing...
20th century, Europe, Hebrew / Yiddish, historical figure, Poland, primary source, quotes, stories
Always up-ending our expectations, no surprise to learn that the ever resourceful Rubinstein, de facto jester in the Warsaw Ghetto, nimbly solved the problem of being single by dressing up as his own wife. He could outwit death, so why not celibacy?’One source...
Hebrew / Yiddish, lexicon
A Yiddish term for entertainer, or more charmingly, ‘merry-maker’, echoing the German fröhlich-macher.In his 1929 book on the history of Polish Jewry Emanuel Ringelblum devoted several paragraphs to a description of groups of late eighteenth century Jewish...
Europe, Hebrew / Yiddish, lexicon
Badkhn (or badchen or badchan) refers to Jewish jesters whose role seems to encompass the fool spectrum from village to itinerant to court, including wedding entertainers. Amos Goldberg says they shared the court jester’s licence to mock and ‘mercilessly...
