Tablet Magazine » cemetery

Sundown: 15 Years of Jordan Peace

Hadara Graubart — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:20:30 +0000

• Yesterday, President Barack Obama celebrated the 15-year anniversary of peace between Israel and Jordan; Jordanians, on the other hand, seem to have lost the “spirit of cooperation” for which he praised their leader: protesters there “called for the treaty to be annulled, while newspapers across Jordan described the peace as ‘frigid.’” [JTA]
• The case of a London Jewish school that refused to admit a boy whose mother had a non-Orthodox conversion has gone to that country’s Supreme Court and raised questions of religion versus ethnicity that may affect other faith schools. [BBC]
• In a strange case reported by website Vos iz Neais, an Israeli journalist has accused the chief rabbi of Turkey of desecrating ancient cemeteries in Istanbul. Maybe he’s greedy for the souls of his heroes: “In some cases gravestones of halacha giants have vanished inexplicably,” says VIN. [VIN]
• Among the less-than-thrilling details of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s Jewish wedding, according to the New York Post: “Gifts for guests included a book in Hebrew and a pair of small white flip-flops with the tag: ‘Ivanka and Jared—what a pair.’” [NYP]
• Tablet Magazine columnist Etgar Keret will be talking to This American Life’s Ira Glass live at the New York Public Library tomorrow; it’s sure to be weird and insightful. [NYPL]

Stick and Stones

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:00:23 +0000

It was the first week in September, and in cowboy boots and jeans, camera slung over my shoulder, I crunched through the springy thick tangle of undergrowth that carpets the old Jewish cemetery in Radauti, a market town in the far north of Romania, near the Ukrainian border. Around me stretched the crowded, ragged rows of tilted tombstones: gray and mossy green, some still bearing remnants of the blue and black and red painted decoration that once adorned the exquisite, ornate carving on their faces.

Radauti is the town from which my father’s parents emigrated to the United States before World War I, but this, for me, was not supposed to be a roots trip. Nor was I consciously fulfilling the tradition of visiting the tombs of my ancestors around the time of the High Holidays.

I was here this time to work on a project called (Candle)sticks on Stone, an exploration of the varied and evocative ways that women are represented in Jewish tombstone art through depictions of Shabbat candles, which I hope eventually to turn into a book.

The project, which is supported in part by a Jewish women’s studies grant from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute, includes making a photographic documentation of Jewish women’s tombstones in Radauti and in several other nearby towns, including Siret, Botosani, and Gura Humorului. The older tombstones in these and other Jewish cemeteries in parts of today’s Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and Poland form an astonishing collection of ornate sculptural design. Many cemeteries have disappeared; in many others the stones are eroded and crumbling. But those that remain comprise wonderful examples of vivid local stone-carving that fuse local folk art and Jewish iconography.

The wide range of carved symbols represent names, professions, personal attributes, or family lineage. There are lions, birds, stags, bears, snakes, and imaginary beasts; there are flowers, grapevines, garlands, and geometric patterns; there are the pitchers of the Levites, the crown of the Torah, and the hands of the Cohanim raised in blessing; and there are powerful symbols of death: the hand of God plucking a flower or breaking off a branch from the Tree of Life.

Here and elsewhere, candles and candlesticks are common symbols on Jewish women’s tombs, because lighting the Sabbath candles is one of the three so-called “women’s commandments” carried out by female Jews—and the only one easily represented in visual terms. (The others include observing the laws of menstrual purity, or Niddah, and that of Challah, or burning a piece of dough when making bread.)

Many are simple, schematic silhouettes, but here in the heart of Eastern Europe they also take on extravagant, elegant forms: carved candlesticks braided like loaves of challah; candlesticks that look like leafy plants, candlesticks flanked by grapevines and griffins, candlesticks that look like flowers, candles that are broken to symbolize death. Above them, on many of the tombstones, are the carved hands of women, held up in a pious gesture to bless the flames.

A primary aim of my (Candle)sticks on Stone project is simply to present these carvings as examples of art. The older stones, from the 18th and early 19th century in particular, are unique examples of sculptural skill and imaginative design: it is often possible to discern the hand of individual, if now anonymous, Jewish stone masons or their workshops. And while later stones, often carved according to stenciled templates, present a more uniform appearance, their style and format still varies greatly from town to town.

Another aim is more reflective. As a Jewish woman who has almost never lit the Shabbat candles in my home, I also cannot fail to consider what this representation means. Candlesticks on stone are a formalized shorthand for “Jewishness” and “gender.” But they also spell tradition.

Ruth Ellen Gruber is the author of National Geographic Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe and Virtually Jewish: Reinventing Jewish Culture in Europe.

Unveiling

admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:00:23 +0000

As a photographer who spent years documenting Jewish sites throughout Eastern Europe, I have a perhaps heightened sensitivity to the use and misuse of Judaica. In town after town from—Prague, Czech Republic, to Uman, Ukraine, with plenty of small villages in between—I’ve found and photographed Jewish gravestones used as walls, as chimneys, and roads. So when I was walking with my 7-year-old son past the 17th hole of the Woodmere Club’s golf course, on Long Island, I was surprised to find a Star of David carved into a stone used as part of a retaining wall, protecting the course from the Reynolds Channel. I looked closer, and discovered hundreds of gravestones, many carved with Jewish names, used as embankment material. The New York Post reported on this yesterday; the club insists the stones—none of which seem to contain dates, only names and symbols—were extra granite, donated many years ago by long-dead club members. Here, for the first time, is a collection of my photos.

News from Spain

Julie Subrin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:00:16 +0000

Every year, epic bicycle race Le Tour de France changes its route and incorporates a bordering region; this year, riders will traverse northwest Spain. Should you want to stand on the sidelines, we recommend Stage 6. It begins in Girona, which boasts one of the largest Jewish Quarters in medieval Catalonia and is overlooked by Mont Juic, or, “Hill of the Jew.” Get there the night before and you can enjoy a concert by viola de gamba master Jordi Savall in the town’s Cloister of the Cathedral.

To the southwest, in Toledo, less boastful are the town officials who allowed a new school to be built over a 13th-century Jewish cemetery, prompting international protest after excavators unearthed the remains of 103 bodies, in violation of Jewish law. According to the director of the regional government’s culture department, “Nobody knows the importance of Spain’s Jewish heritage better than we do in Toledo,” once the capital of Spanish Jewry. “But we can’t put 1,000 pupils on the street.” Yesterday, the conflict was resolved, not entirely to everyone’s satisfaction, when the bones were re-buried near their original resting place.

It may serve as some consolation to know that the Jewish cemetery atop Mont Juic was designated a cultural heritage site this past May. Those who lie there shall go undisturbed, except by the passing of 180 sweaty cyclists this Thursday.

Le Tour de France, official site
Re-Burying Jewish Souls [NYT]