Keeper of the textiles part 2

After my father died, my mother gave me all of my father's tallitot. Actually, more accurately, she gave me all of the tallitot that were in the house. Some of them were my father's and others had just sort of shown up at the house.

Many of my father's tallitot were no longer being worn because they were in fact, worn out and too fragile to wear. I had thought of perhaps making a piece out of them, but in the end, donated them to the local funeral home for them to use for men who did not have their own tallitot to be buried in.

After my father had wrecked the tallit that he had woven for his 70's birthday--by not following the washing directions I had given him, he began wearing a conventional tallit again. Because he was having trouble moving around, he had a tailor stitch it so it would drape in the traditional "flip over the shoulders" manner.

I made my father an atara/neckband to put on that tallit. So for you sentimentalists out there, this atara was from the last tallit that my father actively wore.

Our middle child is leaving for Israel on Sunday for the year. I had made him a black tallit, to his specifications for his bar-mitzvah. he is reluctant to take that tallit to Israel, in case something happens to it. I keep assuring him that I would be happy to make him another, but he loves that tallit and wants to keep it safe.

My husband unearthed his pre-wedding tallit. That tallit was purchaed on my husband's first trip to Israel. It is a light weight tallit. I washed it yesterday, and today will sew on my father's atara.

My son is sentimental enough to appreciate being wrapped up in his father's tallit and his grandfather's atara while he is in Israel.

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Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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