Annie Gottfried Cohen
@annsplaining.bsky.social
Historian researching communism and anti-fascism in the 1930s and 40s, Spanish Civil War and (l'havdil) Jewish women whose job was to talk to the dead. www.pullingatthreads.com. Yiddish teacher and translator. She/her. Live in 🥐, come from 💂, part-time 🗽
![Screenshot from the website of French homeware store Leroy Merlin reading "-10% sur les caméras de surveillance avec le code LOUVRE" [10 percent reduction on surveillance cameras with the code LOUVRE]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:uxl2iqfaiqvjxcqinv5an6ke/bafkreiann4brt7pr2rr6672wrmik26wcdvnck2vtsjebmbmbdxkvwwfc7u@jpeg)
Beautiful talk with Basma Ghalayini and Mazan Manrouf on their new book Palestine -1, stories from the Eve of the Nakba at the Edinburgh Radical Book Fair organised by @lighthousebks.bsky.social
November 9, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Beautiful talk with Basma Ghalayini and Mazan Manrouf on their new book Palestine -1, stories from the Eve of the Nakba at the Edinburgh Radical Book Fair organised by @lighthousebks.bsky.social
Since I last posted on Bluesky (which i still pronounce as if it were a Russian-Jewish surname) I've moved to Edinburgh to (re)start my PhD. Here's some photographic evidence
November 8, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Since I last posted on Bluesky (which i still pronounce as if it were a Russian-Jewish surname) I've moved to Edinburgh to (re)start my PhD. Here's some photographic evidence
Tell me you're a Communist Party archive without telling me you're a Communist Party archive
July 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Tell me you're a Communist Party archive without telling me you're a Communist Party archive
I spent the rest of my walk looking out for buildings that might have been here when Felicia passed through, and thinking about how much the world and this particular part of it has changed and not changed since then.
July 14, 2025 at 9:51 AM
I spent the rest of my walk looking out for buildings that might have been here when Felicia passed through, and thinking about how much the world and this particular part of it has changed and not changed since then.
I'm staying in Montreuil for three weeks while I teach in Paris, and while I was exploring this weekend I realised that it was exactly OTD (11th-15th July specifically) in 1936 that my hero and dead celebrity crush Felicia Browne passed through on her way to Spain ...
July 14, 2025 at 9:50 AM
I'm staying in Montreuil for three weeks while I teach in Paris, and while I was exploring this weekend I realised that it was exactly OTD (11th-15th July specifically) in 1936 that my hero and dead celebrity crush Felicia Browne passed through on her way to Spain ...
Pretty darn exciting to be submitting the final proofs of this chapter, which represents about a year of some of the most interesting and rewarding research I've ever done. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
July 4, 2025 at 12:18 PM
Pretty darn exciting to be submitting the final proofs of this chapter, which represents about a year of some of the most interesting and rewarding research I've ever done. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
Remembering the time that @sacrederviche.bsky.social and I had our first fight (sort of?) and he made me a dinner of everything I had in my fridge on a tortilla as a peace offering
May 10, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Remembering the time that @sacrederviche.bsky.social and I had our first fight (sort of?) and he made me a dinner of everything I had in my fridge on a tortilla as a peace offering
Shofar in a boat for a Tuesday afternoon
May 6, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Shofar in a boat for a Tuesday afternoon
Friend who spent the past week traveling with me and my husband sent us this and I feel like I've won an award. I am giving "healthy" 😇 Generations of bat-shit dysfunctional ancestors + my teenage self are smiling down on me proudly (or cursing me 🪬 who knows with them honestly)
April 28, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Friend who spent the past week traveling with me and my husband sent us this and I feel like I've won an award. I am giving "healthy" 😇 Generations of bat-shit dysfunctional ancestors + my teenage self are smiling down on me proudly (or cursing me 🪬 who knows with them honestly)
Filling out emergency contact information in France be like
![screenshot of a webpage reading 'J'ajoute les personnes de mon entourage' [I add the persons of my entourage]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:uxl2iqfaiqvjxcqinv5an6ke/bafkreihlef5pencm672qdzdyap5jq7mgp2dyer764xet7n2p4nt2hebd4i@jpeg)
April 14, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Filling out emergency contact information in France be like
Evening brain balm from the canal du nord
April 13, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Evening brain balm from the canal du nord
Fundraiser post, cat for attention. (He is purring in this picture, no cats were harmed etc...)
chuffed.org/project/1227...
chuffed.org/project/1227...
April 10, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Fundraiser post, cat for attention. (He is purring in this picture, no cats were harmed etc...)
chuffed.org/project/1227...
chuffed.org/project/1227...
Fave group chat memes so far, credits unknown
March 26, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Fave group chat memes so far, credits unknown
Without downloading new pictures where are you at mentally?
March 20, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Without downloading new pictures where are you at mentally?
Mir vitslen zikh in yidish klas / wisecracking in yiddish class
The exercise is to match the descriptions with particular professions.
4. They make something with their hands. Answers: cook, baker, tailor, cobbler
5. They work from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon
Answer: The French.
The exercise is to match the descriptions with particular professions.
4. They make something with their hands. Answers: cook, baker, tailor, cobbler
5. They work from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon
Answer: The French.
March 20, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Mir vitslen zikh in yidish klas / wisecracking in yiddish class
The exercise is to match the descriptions with particular professions.
4. They make something with their hands. Answers: cook, baker, tailor, cobbler
5. They work from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon
Answer: The French.
The exercise is to match the descriptions with particular professions.
4. They make something with their hands. Answers: cook, baker, tailor, cobbler
5. They work from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon
Answer: The French.
We are anxious cat parents and got our cat a GPS collar and I think the best thing about it is when on a sunny day we randomly get an 'out of office' email from the cat
![Screenshot of email from "Weenect": "mise à jour en cours: Shofar est indisponible pour quelques minutes" [update in progress: Shofar is unavailable for several minutes]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:uxl2iqfaiqvjxcqinv5an6ke/bafkreihsi6saji6zx53yabtvklajt57sxhmqjkc3kvyfxk3kwwy3cgv6iu@jpeg)
March 19, 2025 at 12:43 PM
We are anxious cat parents and got our cat a GPS collar and I think the best thing about it is when on a sunny day we randomly get an 'out of office' email from the cat
Unexpected ref to British Cuisine(™) in a postcard from an American in Paris to friend fighting in the International Brigades in Spain, summer 1937.
'We're eating in a Belgian restaurant at the minute. The waiter, thinking us English, tried to give us something called 'Lemon Squatch' to drink.'
'We're eating in a Belgian restaurant at the minute. The waiter, thinking us English, tried to give us something called 'Lemon Squatch' to drink.'
March 7, 2025 at 12:32 PM
Unexpected ref to British Cuisine(™) in a postcard from an American in Paris to friend fighting in the International Brigades in Spain, summer 1937.
'We're eating in a Belgian restaurant at the minute. The waiter, thinking us English, tried to give us something called 'Lemon Squatch' to drink.'
'We're eating in a Belgian restaurant at the minute. The waiter, thinking us English, tried to give us something called 'Lemon Squatch' to drink.'
Love a bit of casual antisemitism from Mi5 (this is from their 1930s files monitoring suspected communists, which was automatically extended to include many foreigners who had left Nazi Germany or other fascist countries)
March 1, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Love a bit of casual antisemitism from Mi5 (this is from their 1930s files monitoring suspected communists, which was automatically extended to include many foreigners who had left Nazi Germany or other fascist countries)
Sometimes I like reading Communist personnel files and pretend that they are dating ads
February 26, 2025 at 12:25 PM
Sometimes I like reading Communist personnel files and pretend that they are dating ads
It’s only Tuesday
February 25, 2025 at 11:20 PM
It’s only Tuesday
An incredible photo from the New York Yiddish Forverts, 27 January 1924, showing a group of "cemetery women" (klogmuters (wailers) and zogerkes (reciters) who worked in the Vilna cemetery, where they were paid to lead prayers and laments to the dead. Links below for more info 🧵
February 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
An incredible photo from the New York Yiddish Forverts, 27 January 1924, showing a group of "cemetery women" (klogmuters (wailers) and zogerkes (reciters) who worked in the Vilna cemetery, where they were paid to lead prayers and laments to the dead. Links below for more info 🧵
Prepping a class on Ashkenazi ancestral connection practices and I'm obsessed this lament, collected in 1928, in which a wife literally lies down on her husband's grave and, reminding him how great his "thing" was, asks him to bless her and her new husband with a good sex life.
![Screenshot of text: A wife at keyver-oves – collected in Laskarev by Isroel Briv
She lay down on the grave of her deceased husband and began:
Dear husband Moyshe-Nokhem. My sweet Moyshe-Nokhem, oh it’s been so long, and I haven’t been able to forget you. Your “thing” filled my every limb with pleasure. Dear Moyshe-Nokhem, see that you advocate for me and for my new husband, that things won’t be bad for us. Even in such [physical] matters, things are not bad for us. He has the same nature as you had … but I shouldn’t say sinful things. He also likes the things you used to like, Moyshe-Nokhem (quietly) Sweet Moyshe-Nokhem, do you remember how you used to press me so tightly that you almost squeezed my insides out of my belly? Be well, Moyshe-Nokhem, good day, Moyshe-Nokhem. Make efforts for me, Moyshe Nokhem.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:uxl2iqfaiqvjxcqinv5an6ke/bafkreie6ezx7hbzix6cvkg7h53mf7nbcnbe57df4q4nxqkfpe3pyxk4pvu@jpeg)
February 20, 2025 at 4:30 PM
Prepping a class on Ashkenazi ancestral connection practices and I'm obsessed this lament, collected in 1928, in which a wife literally lies down on her husband's grave and, reminding him how great his "thing" was, asks him to bless her and her new husband with a good sex life.