#Jewish papercutting

[creativecuts]

"East Coast Hamsa"

[koenji]

Yehudit Shadur (Israeli, 1928 - 2011), Deft Hands That Devise Skillful Works, Papercut, 40 × 33 in.

Exodus 35:35

They have been given the wisdom of heart to work all manner of crafts, of the designer and the weaver and the embroiderers in colors, in blue, in purple, in scarlet, and in fine twined linen, even of them of deft hands that do any workmanship and of those that devise skillful works

In an effort to gather works of beauty for the Tabernacle, the artisans, such as Bezalel, that G-d had endowed with “divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge of craft” were summoned to contribute their crafts in the presence of the Lord, as Moses had commanded.

This mural papercut was made for the former Fiber Art Center in Amherst, MA as a way to honor all manner of crafts. x

[emmarandallartist]

It reads "Judaism is more than Zionism"

Papercut, 9 x 12, 2024

by Emma Randall

[mintytrifecta]

Hello! I saw you commented on the Jewish academia post. My friend is really interested in reading about this; do you have any book recommendations?

Ooooh yee!! These are some of the books I've got :] I haven't read through all of them fully but I'd still recommend them either way.

Your Guide To The Jewish Holidays is exactly what it sounds like fndjjdjdkd it's a good reference point for which holidays celebrate what and why and how. It's very fun and lighthearted when the holiday calls for it and is just a really good place to go to for holidays specifically. I mean just look at this page on purim

Sjjdjdjejejei

Next up is A Guide To The Jewish Seasons!! Which is also pretty much what it sounds like!!!

Though it's more thorough then the previous one, this one does go through all the holidays and explains the mitzvah (good deed that you're commanded to perform, there's usually multiple) for the holiday and some of the history with it!! It also explains the structure of the Jewish calendar and full yearly cycle as it's very much different from the gregorian calendar (if that wasn't clear from us being in the five thousands instead of two thousands fjdjdkkdke)

Next up Is Where Pride Dwells

This one's a little different. It's a book of Jewish prayers either newly written or rewritten for queer Jewish folks to use. It's also just a very LGBT Jewish book with study on how being queer affects you in Jewish culture and some of the ways to rework it to include us.

Just to give you an idea of what that book has cndjskks.

These are just the ones I've got with me atm but there's a ton more books strewn around near me with these topics fndjjdjdkd honestly aside from this I'd recommend reading about different sects of Judaism (ie orthodox, secular, reform, humanistic etc) to get a good idea of the different perspectives there are to be found :] for fun as well I'd say dip your toes in some Jewish folklore!! Learn about the Golem specifically because I love the golem and it deserves the world (pspsps watch jacob gellers video "the golem and the Jewish superhero" on youtube go do it) and for some art history visit the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art!! Jewish people are Everywhere and we have so many varies styles and subcultures and there's no way I alone would be able to show you everything, but hopefully this'll give you some sort of idea of where you can start :]

If you want me to expand on a certain topic do let me know!! I'd never pass up a chance to talk lolll

[writer-at-the-table]

HukkatArtist/Maker:Sheila WeinbergPlace Made:Michigan, United StatesDate:1984Medium:Cut-out paper. The Hebrew inscription reads: "And bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening" (Numbers 19:19)

[freakpit]

very funny to see what my dad’s genetics brought to the playing field considering how my sister and i look next to all our blue eyed, button nosed & blonde maternal cousins

[bobemajses]

Jewish amulet against Lilith from Eastern Europe, 19th century

The amulet was made in the traditional Ashkenazi papercut form and would be hung by the bed of the child or in the room where the mother would give birth. The animals on it are meant to symbolize the "ideal" human qualities, the three words on the bottom are the names of the three angles who captured and killed Lilith. According to ancient Jewish mythology, Lilith—known as the first wife of the first man, Adam—fled from her husband, and when she refused to return to him, 100 of her children died. Consequently, she seeks to steal the children of others. In Ashkenazi folklore, Lilith wanders at night in search for babies and their mothers, and especially during the first 8 days after the birth of a son, or 20 days following the birth of a daughter. Often the fear was that Lilith would snatch the newborn, leaving a straw doll in its place.

[mxescargot]

Chinastuck: the beta kids

tl;dr for the uninitiated: what if all homestuck characters were chinese people

John Egbert: 光勇 (Guang Yong). Lives in Beijing (im sorry /j). Han, Mongolian, and some Korean ancestry.

egbert means "bright edge" and guang means "bright" and also sounds a little like john even if its the surname. john means god is gracious, which is not really a type of name chinese people give their kids so i just went with a common masculine name that sounds good with guang: yong, which means "brave" which i thought was fitting. i think dad egbert definitely calls them by the diminutive yongyong.

June Egbert might choose the name 小玉 (Xiaoyu), meaning "little jade", in reference to her sister.

Rose Lalonde: 刘秀兰 (Liu Xiulan). Lives somewhere in Jiangsu, probably Shanghai. Hmong, Jewish Han, and Kazakh ancestry.

i literally just went with a random common surname that vaguely sounded like lalonde here. xiulan means elegant orchid, so it's a flower name like rose and i think it fits her vibes. she shares the character xiu with roxy's name, tianxiu.

transmasc rose probably steals his name from a book character.

rose is very similar to canon i think, except she lives in a penthouse in central shanghai. i want to say initially she feels her heritage doesn't matter to her but later in life she tries to reconnect with not being "100% han".

Dave Strider: 赵大伟 (Zhao Dawei). Lives in Chongqing. Hmong, Jewish Han, and Kazakh ancestry (same as Rose).

zhao has a similar meaning to strider and was also a surname of the emperors so it has a connection to royalty. this works for both the lotr reference and king david. dawei is... a generic chinese boys name thats the name you give your kid if you want their english name to be david. it means "extraordinary".

david means "beloved" and every single chinese name like that is feminine. Dove Strider takes this as inspiration for the name Xinyan, spelled either 心燕 meaning "beloved swallow" or 心焱 meaning "beloved flame" instead of the more conventional 心妍 meaning "beloved beauty".

dave struggles with their cultural heritage more actively than rose does, and thus leans hard into their sichuanese identity. i headcanon them as making fun of chengdu (chongqing's rival in representing the cultural center of sichuan) in addition to making fun of northern chinese culture. SICHUAN RAHH

Jade Harley: 林玉平 (Lin Yuping). Lives in rural Shaanxi. Han, Mongolian, and some Korean ancestry (same as John).

lin has similar meaning to both harley and halley, meaning grove/forest. yuping means "peaceful jade".

Jude Harley might choose the name 洋 (Yang), meaning "ocean" in the sense of expansive, or he might not feel a need to change his name. swapping names with his sibling is also a possibility.

i think her upbringing just translates to the rural northwest well? also i think its kinda cool she'd grow up near a section of the great wall of china. i could see her engaging in cultural traditions like papercutting and folk singing :> also buddhist jade real and true im not projecting trust

thanks for coming to my ted talk be on the lookout for more posts like this ft me struggling with traditional characters and cantonese pronunciations

EDIT: @ask-chinastuck exists :)

[goldheartedsky]

Ceremonial

Papercut art is one of my favorite forms of traditional Jewish art and there's nothing that comes close to the magic of a papercut Ketubah, so that was what I drew inspiration from for @theartguard's bimonthly theme: Ceremonies and Rituals

I put a LOT of little details in this and their meanings are listed under the cut:

Dandelions: symbolizes strength and resilience. Hard to kill. Very fitting for these two immortals

'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine': very famous quote from Song of Songs and commonly seen in regards to Jewish weddings

Horseshoes: seen as a lucky symbol in many cultures. When hung upright, the horseshoe is supposed to "catch" good luck.

Books: seen as a collection of knowledge throughout the world and I thought about how much Andy has learned in her centuries (and fitting for Booker's name, obvs)

Poppies: symbolizes peace and death. Also native to Eurasia

Lavender wreath: symbolizes unending devotion. Also native to Provence, France

Pair of Shrikes: commonly known as "butcher birds", shrikes impale their prey on thorns and spikes

Magnolia boutonniere: Magnolia flowers are some of the oldest flowers in the world, dating back to the time of the dinosaurs. Also symbolizes nobility

Tallit: a tallit is a Jewish prayer shawl and many Jewish weddings involve the groom taking the bride under his tallit or wrapping it around her as well

Scythian flower motif: commonly seen in Scythian art and jewelry

Scythian deer: based on a tattoo found on an ancient Scythian woman. The Scythians believed that, though the deer was an earthly animal, it stood apart from the other animals with its symbolic ability to both fly and guide the dead to the underworld

Ginkgo tree: ginkgo trees are able to live for thousands of years and, because of its longevity, have long since been a symbol of hope and resiliance.

[jesncin]

I love your jl works! Particularly your take on Superman and Lois. It is pretty much exactly what I want from a modern superman story!! And I love that you make Clark explicitly jewish. Do you have any thoughts on what it was like for Clark to grow up Jewish in a small town in Kansas? (I think Kansas is part of the Bible belt? And small towns usually have less Jews)

Aaw thank you so much!! :> making the Superman story I want to see in the world!

I'm back and forth currently about how tolerant/accepting Smallville would be to Jewish Kents. Since I like the idea of the Kents being beloved townspeople and Clark having a largely idyllic childhood (occasional personal alien immigrant angst sure, but generally I like him having a happy childhood compared to, say, Bats). I'll probably go for something down the middle, where Smallville is generally tolerant but the Kents go through microaggressions every now and then.

One hc I have is that Clark gets into Jewish papercut after meeting with Jimmy in college (they did a group project together and were tight friends since).

[pumpkinsy0]

OMG HI!!! I’ve been reading ur blog for the past hour and I’m absolutely thrilled to see it lol. I’ve always been a big papercut shipper and seeing other people ship them is a dream come true for my 13 year old self. I wanted to dump some of my headcanons for the outsiders/S.E Hinton Verse mostly because it’s so rare to find people who also like it

I personally see most of the greasers as white. Mostly because of what type of greaser culture the book describes, it’s leant towards white kids back then in the 60s rather than kids of color. But I’ve never seen the Shepards as white. It’s just never something I’ve seen. I grew on a block where everyone raised eachothers kids, as we grew older we joked we were one big mixed family. Ive always see the shepards as that Mexican-American family that I spent my after schools with while my parents were busy.  But that could totally be me projecting Idk

for Johnny I’ve always pictured him as mixed. Probably African American-Italian. He’s described with features that look like people of that heritage look and in my opinion it’s probably one of the main reasons he was targeted. 

For Two-bit I’ve always seen him as a super pasty, always sun-burnt white boy who is super into his European heritage. Like this man can’t deal with school but he’ll do deep dives on Scottish mythology and Vikings any day of the week.

Steve definitely has always looked like he does in the movie to me. He’s definitely a hillbilly, I have cousins who act exactly like him and it’s absolutely hilarious because the deep southern accent just makes them not understandable. I’ve personally viewed Steve having that deep accent and also having a lisp (wowza I’m just projecting on him lol) so no one understands him besides from Soda and the older women who come to the DX.

I’ve always viewed Dally as Italian also but he is the type that can not tan to save his life. His nearly white blonde hair is not just from the bleach he puts on it but from running around in the sun all day every day. There is this one artist that draws him like a gremlin that I love I’m pretty sure their @ is something among the lines of crow1121? I can’t find rn and it’s killing me lol. But the other artist is @/ nutsackx and I absolutely love their interpretation of the gang 

Honestly with the Curtis’s I love ur interpretation of them being Arab-American but my little projecting heart (wow I do that a lot) always have viewed them as a German-Jewish and Romani as that’s what my family is and they lived very similar lives back in the 60s. It’s a small little head cannon I’ve always had and I’ve always held onto for the Curtis family. I can’t ever view them as non-immigrants tho. 

Sorry this is so long sweetie. I just got super caught up in rambling and your blog really inspired me 🫶

HELLLOOOOO!!! glad u found this blog!!! we r all here for funsies and just doing whatever, glad to have u onboard<333

OKOK NOW LOOK☝🏽☝🏽i knooowwww SE Hinton wrote the outsiders w everyone but johnny being white in mind, but honestly i think what makes me change them some of em into poc instead is just bc i want to and its fun to me!!!! tbh, i like having different ideas on characters than others, plus part of it is just inspired by the ppl around me!!! at the very least tho, i do tryyyyyy to make it more historically accurate so its not like i just SHOVED them in there and i dont get 100% attacked by the “this isnt historically accurate grrrr” brigade, for example my haitian shepards, at the end of the day its mostly a self projection but i do have lore for them as to y theyre even in oklahoma, yknow??? doing things like that is fun to me!!!

WHEN IT COMES TO THE SHEPARDS, i will say, whenever i would see white shepards im like “oh i thought we all saw that they were poc guys</333” EVEN W THE MOVIE i was surprised tim wasnt a poc but whateverrrr we move onnnnn

BUT I DO LIKE UR ETHNICITY IDEAS!!!!, once again ANOTHER version of the characters put into my little multiverse right there w arab curtis family<3333

personally i hc dally to b italian, but considering the demographics of brooklyn back then, yea it is 100% possible he couldve been italian, and w johnny to me hes mexican/bengali, so i think its pretty cool that u see them as both being italian, im def rockin w it, it gives them something they can connect over a bit!!

and im happy to say we both see the curtis’ as being jewish, to me theyre ethnically jewish, i based the curtis’ off my gf im ngl

BUT ANYWAYS NO WORRIES!!! i love answering long asks and so happy my blog inspired u to share ur thoughts<333

[creativecuts]

"Safe as Houses: Portrait of a Zayde"

My dad has always been very domestic. In the 70s when he got married they called them "role reversed" because my dad wanted to be home with the kids and my mom was focused on her career as a doctor. Now that he's retired, my dad is living his best life as a Jewish grandpa (Zayde in Yiddish). Cleaning the house while listening to Bob Dylan, playing fantasy marbles, bringing food to his stressed out daughters, and most importantly taking care of the eyniklekh (grandchildren). I've always been exceptionally lucky to have such a loving family and dad who have supported me my whole life so I made this piece, featuring Him and my nephew, for his birthday. Happy birthday Tatti. I love you!

[koenji]

Yehudit Shadur (1928-2011), The Story of Job | A FIVE-PART INTERPRETATION IN CUT PAPER

Symmetry is abandoned in Yehudit Shadur's five papercut panels that tell the story of Job's suffering and his anguished quest to understand G-d's purpose. The artist portrays Job in the stark, wild desert landscape of Edom and the Negev, incorporating verses from the Book of Job into the design of each episode.

Singer, Suzanne (1986) "Papercuts -- An Ancient Art Form Glorifies Biblical Texts," Bible Review, vol II, 2:28-35.

[emmarandallartist]

[goingrampant]

In an early plotline in the webcomic College Roomies from Hell, back when it was a simple gag strip about a normal guy dealing with horrible roommates and not an epic drama about fighting Satan, one of the roomies from hell is sent to invite the cute girls next door out for dinner as a friendly gesture. However, the roomie in question, Roger, is extremely weird, and, finding the girls absent and having no pen to write a note, he utilizes a papercut to write in blood without realizing that makes the note he leaves look extremely threatening out of context: We are coming to get you...

This is what pro-Palestinian activists are doing when they think they're sending a message to Jews about not condemning Israel enough by spray painting a swastika in front of a synagogue and defacing a Holocaust memorial with red handprints.

There are a lot of people who think the messages are obvious, that the swastika obviously means that the Jews who support Israel in its current aggression toward Gaza are acting as Nazis did toward Jews and that the handprints (as a derivation of the condemnation of Canadian residential schools) reveal the dead Gazan children left in the wake of the pretentious Jews who cling to notions of victimization in the Holocaust while supporting the Israeli war. And they're Roger, the roomie from hell, too far into their own skulls to realize they're doing things that any reasonable person would read as a deadly threat. Whether or not Israel in its current presentation is comparable to Nazi Germany, spray painting a swastika on a synagogue is only going to be read the way it always has been, because people aren't going to look at a common use of semiotics and think, "Okay, but what if there's an artistic use this time?" As for the handprints, they're read as a reference to the 2000 Ramallah lynching.

There is a real problem with empathy here. The Rogers in the pro-Palestinian movement are convinced that the meaning of these messages are obvious. They think the swastika and other Nazi stuff presented as part of protests are obviously about Jews now acting like Nazis, and that when they shove Nazi symbols in Jews' faces and Jews react badly, it must be because Jews see that they act like Nazis and feel some kind of shame. The fact that this doesn't result in a condemnation of Israel and instead aggression toward the people revealing this shame with a claim of "antisemitism" then represents a commitment to evil, to Zionist fascism. That is the emotional logic that Rogers read into the situation. Meanwhile, on the other side, Jews just see threats of genocide hurled at them, and then they call that antisemitism and act against it.

In the comic, Roger just acts stupid on his own because he doesn't think things through. In this situation, I honestly think there are Nazis in the background manipulating things. The pro-Palestinian Rogers may be patsies, steered to certain behaviors regardless of internal rationalization. In a sense, it doesn't matter if Nazis have, at their disposal, a group of brutes who want to tear people apart or a group of humanitarian activists doing whatever they can to make the world a better place; as long as they can make them engage in behavior to terrorize the Jewish population, they're useful to the Nazi agenda. Nazis aren't restricted to overtly far-right communities; they float around; they're cozy with terfs; they're dancing through the pro-Palestinian movement, and they're manipulating people as they can. You are not immune to Nazi propaganda, and even if you have the best of intentions, you can be a Roger and contribute to spreading terror.

[thepomegranatewitch]

This week's mikveh art: I rewrote the traditional ketubah wording with the Lieberman clause to be between Klal Yisrael and the divine, and rewrote the Lieberman clause as a purification clause. Mimicking the vernacular and Hebrew ketubot style, I added in a poem and my poetic translation of the traditional immersion and shehecheyanu brachot to the left.

I am fascinated by the delineation between purity and holiness, and the fact no-one can be purified, technically, until a Temple is rebuilt. This opens so many possibilities for us!

Since technically all humans are related to humanity and thus ineligible to sign as witnesses, I had Lilith and a golem (I like to think it's the Golem of Prague) sign. I struggled to choose which name of Gd to write in (I collect them, all with shades of meaning) but settled on an ungendered or god-gendered version. In some places you will see the word 'god' or 'godself;' I use god as Elohim's pronouns. Since the month starts with the fresh crescent moon, and it's my name, I centered that at the top of the phases. The papercut is traced off a pomegranate blackwork pattern.

Text on image below image description.

Image description: a ketubah with a background of bright blue and white waves, centered on a photo of the moon. The moon has a white glow. White hamsot in the corners, white pomegranate blackwork in a circle, and white moon phases starting with a rosh chodesh moon at center top circling the moon and text in center mimic papercutting. The ketubah text on right of the moon has a yellow cast to black font and is shaped like a crescent. The remaining space to left is a poem with a purple gray cast. The ketubah is signed in thin cursive Hebrew by Lilith, and childishly large block print Hebrew by the golem. The bottom centered pomegranate holds the artist's signature in red.

~~~

Ketubah text:

On the third day of the week, the third day of the month in the year two thousand four hundred and forty eight since the creation of the world, the era according to which we count here at the slopes of Mount Sinai that Elohim Eloheinu said to Klal Yisrael children of Abraham and Sarah through the line of Yitzhak and Rivkah’s son Yaakov and his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah.

“Be My people according to these laws I have given you, and I will cherish, honour, support, and maintain you in accordance with the custom of Jewish husbands who cherish, honour, support, and maintain their wives faithfully. And I here present you with the marriage gift of these teachings of connection, which belongs to you, the law of Moshe and Yisrael; and I will also give you your food as manna and the seven sacred species, tallitot, and necessities, and live with you as your god according to universal custom. And Klal Yisrael, these people consented and became god’s people. The trousseau that they brought to god from their house in silver, gold, valuables, clothing, furniture, and bedclothes, their stiffneckedness and chutzpah and thankfulness and dedication, all this Elohim accepted in the sum of themselves, and Elohim the bridegroom consented to increase this amount from god’s own property with the sum of six hundred and thirteen teachings of connection, making in all one covenant. And thus said Elohim, the bridegroom: “The responsibility of this marriage contract, of this trousseau, and of this additional sum, I take upon Myself and My heirs after me, so that they shall be paid from the best part of My property and possession that I have of and beneath the whole heaven, that which I now possess or may hereafter create. All My property, real and personal, even the glory which is My raiment, shall be mortgaged to secure the payment of this marriage contract, of the trousseau, and of the addition made to it, during My lifetime as Ein Sof, from the present day and forever.” Elohim, the bridgegroom, has taken upon godself the responsibility of this marriage contract, of the trousseau and the addition made to it, according to the restrictive usages of all marriage contracts and the additions to them made for the children of Yisrael, according to the institution of our sages of blessed memory. It is not to be regarded as a mere forfeiture without consideration or as a mere formula of a document. We have followed the legal formality of symbolic delivery between Elohim Eloheinu, the bridegroom and Klal Yisrael children of Abraham and Sarah through the line of Yitzhak and Rivkah’s son Yaakov and his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah, and we have used as a garment legally fit for the purpose a rainbow, to strengthen all that is stated above, and everything is valid and confirmed.

And both together agreed that if either party in this marriage shall ever become impure, then either spouse may invoke the cleansing of the gathering of the living waters, in a naturally occurring or duly kosher humanmade gathering, to immerse three times as is appropriate under Jewish purity and holiness law; and if either spouse shall fail to honour the purifying powers of the gathering of these living waters or to live in accordance with this cleansing power, then the other spouse may invoke any and all remedies available in healthy community power to enforce acknowledgement of the cleansing powers of this first creation and this solemn abligation.

Attested to [Lilith] Witness

Attested to [GOLEM] Witness

~~~

Poetry text: Note that in order for a ketubah to be kosher, there must be a clearly defined shape to the text with no space to alter the contract. This text is not exactly what appears on the image so as to make it screen reader friendly. All open space has been replaced with words in a font half the size to fill it. These are bracketed so you know what words are repeated to fill the space. They exist between stanzas and in stanzas separating the lines.

[purity holiness] You will never be pure. Oh, sure, one day, perhaps, the stars may align, the calf be born, the stones relaid - but until then see the foxes, jackals, among the ruins. You will never be pure. [purity wholeness] But how wonderful a world of possibilities opens! Instead of pure you can be holy wholly human. [wholeness purity] Your body is your body is the image of God. your choices are your choices are yours. [purity holiness] Immerse, and cleanse yourself. Start anew. Emerge from the womb of the earth trailing amniotic rain. Be wrapped dry in clean white linen, welcomed by name, and your holiness affirmed. [immerse] Return to the head of it all: the gathering of the roiling sea, moon tugging at your blood, lungs sealed shut, as waves push you back, back, back to shore as sun sets orange. [purify immerse] You will never be pure like the moon is not pure: shifting phase to phase above us. like oceans are not pure: glimmering gold and silt and teeming life. like forests are not pure: ancient and fecund and noisy. like gardens are not pure: a riot of life and species cocreating. like birth and death are not pure: bodies riding the cycle. like storms are not pure: winds and rain and lightning. like deserts are not pure: so dry but filled with life when you breathe. like art is not pure: messy with emotion. You will never be pure: but you are holy. [holy] We long to re-enter living waters and they long to hold to us, gift us their slippery purity now we have forgotten to breathe them - only hold them in our veins - but more than that we long to exit the waters and stride forth onto surety. [holy] Blessed are You, She Who Contracts our god, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed us with these teachings of connection and invites us to immerse. Blessed are You, She Who Contracts, our god, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed me with my life, held me, and accompanied me to this moment.