Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Women's Zimmun And Communist Zimmun

On a prior post about the proper nusach for zimmun, Lion of Zion made an interesting comment -- that on a kibbutz, rather than saying Rabbotai Nevarech, they say Chaveirai Nevarech.

My wife noted that when women make a mezuman, they say Chaveirotai Nevarech. Since after all, they are not rabbis.

It seems fairly obvious that the kibbutz version preceded, since Chaveirai there means "comrades." While the sources for women's zimmun certainly preceded communism, it is unclear that this was standard actual practice in the past. And even if it was at some point, as I noted in that post, this introduction of Rabbotai Nevarech is a fairly recent innovation, and where innovated, it was in Yiddish (though with the words Rabbotai).

2 comments:

Steg (dos iz nit der šteg) said...

could it be that women's zimmun became popular again through the קיבוץ הדתי segment of religious society in Israel, hence the "comrades" instead of "gentlemen/ladies"?

Anonymous said...

Some women say גבירותי for zimmun.

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