Queen……….
I didn’t know my great grandmothers, but certainly knew my grandmothers who were both alive until I was about 40. They both had a knippel…one was Litvak and the other Yekkeh. Neither used the term Knippel as neither spoke Yiddish.
My paternal grandmother had only sons so they were not taught about it. My maternal grandmother had only daughters and they were taught the importance of a knippel.
In the Great Depression of the 1930s when both grandfathers’ businesses went under it was the knippel that kept the family going. In the late 1930s my Oma’s knippel was instrumental in buying the freedom of the last 3 of her extended family still in Germany.
My father’s business partners put his business into bankruptcy in 1962 while my parents were in EY for 2 months. We survived on mom’s knippel while dad rebuilt his livelihood.
I have one sister, I remember my mother teaching her “if your husband gives you $100 per week to run the house, you take 10% off the top for the knippel, and 10% off the bottom for tzedaka, you can shop and cook wisely on 80% of what he thinks you need.’
I have one sister,when she married back in 1970, my brother and I gave her $1,000 to start her knippel. We told her that we never wanted her to be in the position of asking her husband for money to buy home a birthday gift, and that she must always have some money of her own.
We also told her that if it ever ran out, to come to us for a replenishment. Unfortunately, she has a sick husband (he has needed multiple transplants over the years) and a son whose expensive hearing aids were never covered by insurance. We B”H have been able to replenish the knippel over the years without my BIL knowing.
My wife’s family also has the tradition of the knippel, they are Litvaks from Vilna (her grandparents were born there). She taught our daughter’s take 10% off the top of all the wife’s personal income for the knippel.
A good husband knows that if you give your wife cash to buy something, don’t expect change…it goes in the knippel.