An interesting work assignment

A Women's Minyan/Prayer Group asked me to come up with honors cards. At a service, there are various honors to be distribulted. On a regular Shabbat there are eight readings from the Torah. A member of the community honored by being called forward to recite the blessings before and after that reading. The Torah scroll is raised after the reading, and then, rolled wrapped and dressed before being returned to the ark.

In some synagogues, the honors are simply given out verbally.( Someone will come up to you and ask if you want an aliya/to be called up to the Torah) Other synagogues give out cards. I guess the advantage of the cards is that the honoree knows for sure exactly which aliya they are being called up for. It also helps the person giving out the honors keep track of what has already been given out and what is yet to be given out.

Hebrew is a gender language. Unlike English , the words for numbers differ if they object being counted is masculine or feminine. Since in this case, all of the honorees are women, the Hebrew on the honor cards needed to reflect that.

I don't like using English on Jewish ritual objects. I also understand that not everyone reads Hebrew. I decided, then, for the numbered aliyot, to use the Arabic numeral along with the ordinal number in Hebrew. I wanted the lettering to look really crisp. I calligraphed the lettering onto card stock and then cut it out using an X-acto knife. I used the card as a stencil. The color was applied by brushing a stiff paintbrush with Shiva oil paint sticks. The Arabic numerals are in white, the ordinal number in Hebrew are in red. The base fabric is a Chinese silk brocade in black. The room that this Women's Minyan meets in has an ark curtain made by Bracha Lavee in brights anchored in black. I had made a table covering for the room in similar colors. the texture of the brocade gives the cards a richer look.

Some of the synagogue honors don't have a number. I needed to make a card for the honor of raising thr Torah scroll and one for rolling and dressing the scroll. I used the same technique of turning my drawings into papercuts and thenusing the paper cut as a stencil.

Although I think of myself as an artist, I know that I don't draw particularly well. I always surprise myself when i can draw at all reasonably well. al of these cards will be have colorful borders and will be stuffed with low loft batting and quilted before being backed and bound in a contrasting color.

I still need to come up with an image for the Maphtirah, the woman who will do the reading from the prophets. any ideas????

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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