sarah in nyc

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the Bard Graduate center to see  French Fashion, Women, and the First World War . The Bard museum is a small one housed in a townhouse on 86th street. I have seen some lovely exhibits there in the past. Between scrolling through their virtual gallery and looking at my photos you will get a pretty good sense of the exhibit. One big theme of the exhibit was how the role of women changed because of the war. In France women took over jobs normally done by men, delivering mail, running the rail system and the transit system, working in the fields ... There is an excellent silent film at the start of the exhibit showing contemporary footage of women at work during the war. We normally think of Rosie the riveter being a WWII phenomenon but during WWI women donned jumpsuits and kept the home front working. Both the changed role of women as well as fabric shortages caused by needing to supply the war-front simplified clothing. The Bard ...

As the sun sets on the last day of Chanukah, I want to talk a bit about our Chanukiyot.  I have mentioned earlier that when I take photos of our lit  Chanukiyot each night of the holiday that it feels almost like a portrait of the person who owns that particular Chanukiya. Today, as I cleaned up all of the built up wax and polished each Chanukiya before I put it away, I thought about each one and the deep connection we each have to our particular Chanukiya.  My late mother-in-law used to say often that she was terrible at choosing gifts for people. She usually managed this by giving cash as a gift. When my kids were little and money meant very little to them they found this choice baffling.  But once when my older son was at the height of his train love,  my in-laws called me. Their synagogue gift shop was selling a train shaped menorah, did I think it would be a good gift for my son? My son was deep into his passion for all things train. He ardently wat...

In a few minutes we light candles for Sabbat and Chanukah. We are eating a vegetable kugel because I just can't eat another fried anything. Our daughter and son-in-law gave us hot spicy honey so we made our chicken with it. If it it tastes as good as it smells, then we have a fine meal ahead of us. It has been a particularly lovely Chanukah with lots of visitors and lots of  good eating and singing, what more can you ask for?  Shabbat Shalom!

My sister came to town to enjoy her time off from work and to celebrate Chanukah with us.We took the subway to Boro Park to go to one of our favorite restaurants. We are always happy to see the buses from Bet Zipporah, the school with my mother's name when we go to Boro Park Our cousin and her husband at her caregiver were all meeting us at  Angela's Restaurant . It's a favorite of ours and will be of yours if you like skewered grilled meat. We had called to make sure that there would be room for our large party but unfortunately we had to wait to be seated. The wait was well worth it. We ate our fill of skewered meats of all kinds while watching Russian variety shows on the giant TV screens. Eating at Angela's, being served by Angela is like spending the evening in Uzbekistan. You just have to go with the flow and you will have an excellent time. There are no  menus. Angela will offer options for you to select from, she will ask your table to raise th...

Last night was the first night of Chanukah. Our daughter and son in law came to light candle with us. A friend joined us as well. We all worked together to make dinner, cheese latkes, sweet potato latkes, apple sauce, If you cook the applesauce with the apple skins your sauce develops this gorgeous color. My older son and I discussed if it was worth the trouble of removing all of the apple skins from t completed sauce. The jury is still out o  this one.  cranberry sauce and a giant salad. After we ate, we lit candles. Every year, after candle lighting I take photos, usually not of the people around the menorahs but of the flames themselves. Last night, I was ready to not take photos to just be in the moment. But in the middle of the singing, my youngest slid my camera over to me,. I took photos of our lit menorahs. As I thought about why I do this year after year, I thought about the line from Proverbs, נר ה' נשמת אדם God's candle is the soul of hum...

One of the things that experience has taught me is that the best order for doing work is not always  the instinctive one. I am working on an atara that includes the following text אִלּוּ פִינוּ מָלֵא שִׁירָה כַּיָּם, וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה כֲּהַמוֹן גַּלָּיו, וְשִׂפְתוֹתֵינוּ שֶׁבַח כְּמֶרְחֲבֵי רָקִיעַ, Even if our mouths could fill with song as water fills the sea, You can listen to a musical setting of the text while you read the rest of this post I had already dyed the strips of silk that would be layered to become the sea. Here you see them both separately  and layered.  I dyed the velvet that would become the sky. You see it both wet, and dry Years ago with less experience doing these things, I would have built the sea and then added the lettering. I want the letters to sit inside the sea, partially submerged and partially above the water the way a body is in and above the water when swimming.  That...