(Candle)sticks on Stone

Friday, March 27, 2009

Another Test Post

Me at grave of my great-grandmother, Ettel Gruber, 2006.

I can't decide which software to use.

I'm testing this site to see if Blogger is the platform I want to use for my (Candle)sticks on Stone project, a look at representation and self-representation of Jewish women, in death and in life, focusing on the tradition of women as lighters of candles and bearer of light.

Radauti is the town from which my grandparents emigrated to the US, and where my great-grandmother is buried; her grave is marked by a tombstone bearing the representation of candlesticks.

The photo above shows a 2001 family reunion of three generations of my grandparents' descendants.

(Candle)sticks on Stone

Sabbath candles are a common, and potent, symbol on women's tombs. That is because lighting the Sabbath candles is one of the three so-called "women's commandments" carried out by female Jews: these also include observing the laws of Niddah separating men from women during their menstrual periods, and that of Challah, or burning a piece of dough when making bread.

The first time I saw a Jewish woman's tombstone bearing a representation of candles was in 1978, when for the first time I visited Radauti, the small town in the far north of Romania near where my father's parents were born. The tombstone in question was that of my great-grandmother, Ettel Gruber, who died in 1946 and in whose honor I received my middle name. Her gravestone is a very simple slab, with a five-branched menorah topping an epitaph.

Since then, and particularly over the past 20 years, I have visited scores if not hundreds of Jewish cemeteries in East-Central Europe, documenting them, photographing them, and writing about them in books and articles.

Carvings on Jewish tombstones include a wide range of symbols representing names, professions, personal attributes, or family lineage -- as well as folk decoration. In northern Romania and parts of Poland and Ukraine in particular, cemeteries include a variety of wonderfully vivid motifs, and some stones still retain traces of the brightly colored painted decoration that once adorned them.

Candlesticks on women's tombs are more or less a constant: sometimes they are very simple renditions, yet they can be extraordinarily vivid bas-relief sculptures. In some instances, broken candles represent death. And in some cemeteries, the carving is so distinctive that you can discern the hand of individual, if long forgotten, artists.

Using Radauti as the focus of my photographic documentation of women's tombs provides the project with a personal as well as professional dimension.

As noted above, I chose to concentrate on the Jewish cemetery in Radauti because of its historical importance and its extensive collection of well-preserved tombstones. Hundreds of stones here bear unforgettable images featuring exquisitely carved representations of candlesticks -- sometimes braided candlesticks -- and, often, a woman's hands blessing the lights.

But Radauti is also of great personal importance to me because my father's parents emigrated to the U.S. from the town, and my great-grandmother is buried here. I plan to use parts of my grandmother’s hand-written memoirs to supplement the historical notes that will accompany the photographs.

My project will also both complement and benefit from the work of descendants of Radauti Jews, the tiny local community and the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania, who have recently joined forces to document the town's Jewish heritage.

Thousands of stones in the cemetery have been photographed and lists of names, dates and other basic information have been compiled from the epitaphs.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

MOVING SITE TO NEW ADDRESS

Friday, March 27, 2009

Another Test Post

Trying out the Site

(Candle)sticks on Stone

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