First thing this morning Judah and his mother came by to pick up his tallit with the completed atara. Judah doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He tends to express his emotions is muted ways. I was delighted to see a large smile on his face when he saw the completed atara. A couple of hours later I met a new to me cousin and his wife. We had connected through 23 and me. The combination of trauma and hurt feelings has left earlier generations of my family with many bruised feelings which led to rifts and splits. I arrived to lunch with my mother's photo album. When my cousin and I first set eyes on one another we searched one another's faces for signs of familiarity. I showed my cousin photos of his grandfather as a child, of his great grandparents, of his great aunts. I sketched out the branches of our joint family tree. As we talked and talked it became clear that our connections and similarities had less to do with looks but with thi...
A blog, mostly about my work making Jewish ritual objects, but with detours into garment making, living in New York City, cooking, and other aspects of domestic life. A note about comments: I love comments from readers, from spammers, not so much. I approve comments before posting them so comments are not cluttered with junk. It may take a few hours before your posts appear. Be patient. If you are a real person with a real comment it will be posted.