Threads Between People

Abstract

Beginning with handmade yads (torah pointers) in Macon, Georgia, this chapter analyzes the emotional bonds that handmade gifts forge between giver and recipient. As one Jewish grandmother said, “You have to give them emotion.” After examining gifts given (and occasionally, returned) by her interviewees, the author also reflects on the gifts she received when she became a cancer patient midway through the course of her research, and how they made her more attuned to the power of resilience through material religion.