sarah in nyc

 First a tiny bit of business. I began this blog in 2011. I just discovered this week  that I have passed a million page views. I started this blog because the child of dear friends strongly suggested that I should. The great heyday of blogs and blogging seems to have passed, nevertheless there are usually a couple of hundred of you who stop by every day. Thank you.  Some blogs are very focused on one topic. I write about my work creating Judaica in fabric, the process of sewing both my commission work and clothing ( mostly for myself), I usually post about cooking for Shabbat. I often post about living here in New York I also post about Jewish issues that I have been thinking about. There probably aren't any readers that are interested in everything I write about and that's fine. Some of you are people I have known for most of my life. There are people here who know me from the neighborhood and my synagogue. There are other readers who I have known virtually through the ...

  When I was asked to restore the  Schechter Mappah  the principal of the school asked if I could also create a hanging for the inside of the ark that included the texts one recited while the ark is open and the service leaders are facing the ark. My hanging would replace a crumpled piece of paper  with a photocopy of the texts that was taped to the inside door of the ark. I figured that anything that I did would look better than crumpled paper. I delivered the mappah just before Rosh HaShanah and figured that I would complete the piece as soon as we got back from Israel in late October.  October 7, we were in our son's apartment in Ashkelon sleeping his beautiful bedroom facing the ocean when the rockets began to rain down from Gaza. It took me a little while to get back to work but eventually, I did. The texts are painted onto Ultrasuede which I sponge painted to look more like parchment. Because this is a piece to be used by school children I added in all of ...

  The time had come for me to re-do what I had thought of as the gateway into prayer on the Schechter Mappah. The silk had shredded away so rather than make that same mistake again I decided to remake the doorway in Ultrasuede. I cut a piece of tan Ultrasuede to size and then painted it with a mixture of fabric dyes and acrylic paint. I wanted to add a bit more texture to the Ultrasuede before I added the text. I used a vintage rubber stamp to create the texture. I used a blend of soft purples, blues and greens on the stamp. It was time to calligraph the text. Perhaps I ought to have actually looked at the existing text. Instead I relied on my memory and the ear-worm that has been hanging around as i have been thinking about doing this part of the mappah. The relevant track is the first one that you will hear on this album, but feel free to dive into the sounds of my childhood and listen to this album to the end. I chalked out a border, using the width of my palm (about three inche...

 Ezra's bar-mitzvah is Shabbat B'reishit.  I have been making him a tallit for that great occasion. Each stripe on Exta's tallit represents a day of creation.  Creating the seven stripes has taken far longer than seven days. As of today, Six of the days of creation are complete and one is not yet done but here they are. בְּ רֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃ W hen God began to create a Others “In the beginning God created.” heaven and earth— וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃ the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from b Others “the spirit of.” God sweeping over the water— וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־אֽוֹר׃ God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים  ׀  לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד׃ {פ} God called th...