{"title":"Generating the Generations","authors":"Jodi Eichler-Levine","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter focuses on the idea of memory in order to understand how Jewish crafters generate memory through their creations. It studies the role of Holocaust memory in crafting, the use of heirloom fabrics in making family treasures, and the complex ways the ethnographer herself became enmeshed in networks of memory. The author also analyses Louise Silk’s work on memory quilts and attends to the way fabric “holds” memory. Ultimately, the members of the Pomegranate Guild and other interviewees seek ways of maintaining Jewish legacies not only in words, but also in thread.","PeriodicalId":330893,"journal":{"name":"Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117211579","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Threads Between People","authors":"Jodi Eichler-Levine","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0005","url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":330893,"journal":{"name":"Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129159196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bezalel’s Heirs","authors":"Jodi Eichler-Levine","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores the dynamics of crafting communities among Jewish American women, with a particular focus on the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework—a North American organization founded in 1977. For the women of the Pomegranate Guild and other people in the study, the power of making things takes on extra meaning when it is done in groups, so much so that one participant called stitching together “magic.” The chapter also includes a study of a Pennsylvania synagogue knitting circle, and comparisons with Christian crafting groups such as the Prayer Shawl Ministry.","PeriodicalId":330893,"journal":{"name":"Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128916275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In the Beginning","authors":"Jodi Eichler-Levine","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"In the beginning, there was a handkerchief. This chapter examines how Jewish women generate resilience through the activity of crafting. From a Los Angeles octogenarian who describes the meditative nature of sewing a wimpel, or Torah binder, to reflections on gender and Judaism from a working mother, the story of this chapter is the story of how generativity is gendered. Rather than taking a biological connection between women and fecundity for granted, it unsettles the ways we think about both human reproduction and the production of objects.","PeriodicalId":330893,"journal":{"name":"Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129748613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Black Fire, White Pixels, and Golden Threads","authors":"Jodi Eichler-Levine","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Craft and technology are intimately intertwined. This chapter exams how craft happens in a digital age. Through interviews with Jewish craft bloggers, studies of Jewish knitters whose work has gone viral, and meditations on how the history of craft is in fact connected to the history of computers, the author shows that the combination of material crafting and digital communication tethers communities together across a sea of pixels.","PeriodicalId":330893,"journal":{"name":"Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis","volume":"130 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131405294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tikkun Olam to the Max","authors":"Jodi Eichler-Levine","doi":"10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469660639.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines examples of activism among crafters (also known as “craftivism”) from 2016-2019, with some earlier historical context. Some of these social justice actions, such as the hats accompanying the 2017 Women’s March, were created by Jewish women; others, like the Jewish Hearts for Pittsburgh, were created with specific Jewish communities in mind. All of these examples share the goal of building meaning and community through activism, a repair of the world in literal stitches and metaphorical, even mystical, ideas about human connection.","PeriodicalId":330893,"journal":{"name":"Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126406256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}