It's All Relative: In stitches

Schelly Talalay Dardashti

Let your needle tell your family history

THE scope of family history covers so many areas. Researchers may collect and label photographs, locate family documents, study history, discover family food traditions and prepare charts as life cycle event gifts.

As a former needlepointer and embroiderer, by now I should have joined these passions of genealogy and needlework. When I received an e-mail this week from Brenda Rossini of the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, I realized that some people were way ahead of me on this one.

Brenda, president of the North Shore/Chicago chapter of the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework, wrote that they have begun a special family tree project, utilizing their needle skills. She read the recent column about this summer's International Conference in Jerusalem and wrote, "Your sites and conference info came at just the right time, and I have forwarded it to our national and other local chapters.

"Most of our members are only now becoming involved in genealogy, because of this project," Brenda says, crediting fellow stitcher Eleanor Feitler's own family tree creation with inspiring the group project. "When I saw it, with symbols for the ancestors, and the victims of the Shoah, and the old country at the root of the tree, it was really inspiring."

THE GUILD

Organized in 1977 by a group of professional Jewish needle artists in New York, the Guild now has numerous chapters all over the US with individual and group affiliates in other countries. Everyone involved shares the common interests of Jewish tradition and a desire to create beautiful works for home and synagogue.

In Israel, Pomegranate Guild member Esther Bannett and her husband David made aliya in 1949 from New York, and have lived in Kfar Haroeh, between Netanya and Hadera, since 1952. Mother of four, grandmother of 20 and great-grandmother of two, Esther began needlework when her children entered high school. A quilter and embroiderer, she would like to hear from like-minded readers, possibly to start a Guild group in her area. Call her (not Shabbat) 04-636-5186, or e-mail, .

The Accent Quilters Guild, with 50 members, meets at Herzliya's Beit Protea on the first Tuesday of the month. For more information, contact leader Terry Mowszowski of Ra'anana, 09-774-4676.

In an Anchorage, Alaska synagogue, one of the "frozen chosen" has produced almost all the synagogue hangings, Torah mantles and other decorations. A Long Island, NY group makes quilts for young Israeli terror victims, a project in which the Bet Protea group participates. Still others produce beautiful talitot, bags, kippot in all forms, tzedaka boxes from plastic canvas and yarn for synagogue projects. Members' skills cover all types of needlework and textiles, some even weave.

Guild members revive Jewish traditions, create heirlooms for their children, recreate memories or recall family members lost in the Holocaust.

WHY THE POMEGRANATE?

And they made upon the hem of the robe pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet and twined linen. And they made bells of pure gold and put the bells between the pomegranates upon the hem of the robe, round about the pomegranates.(Exodus 39: 24-25).

This fruit is frequently mentioned in the Bible, and legend has it that its many seeds number 613, the same number of required good deeds - a link from the present to the past.

The Guild takes its name specifically from the Exodus verse which describes Aaron's garments, and the Guild logo is a stylized pomegranate with the stem transformed into a threaded needle.

MEETINGS

The Guild encourages beginners and professionals, men and women, to join a chapter or as an individual, with the goals of heightening Judaic artistic awareness and creating a visual legacy to hand to younger generations.

The variety of activities is large: needlepint, embroidery, cross stitch; producing special projects, ethnic embroidery, quilting squares, ribbon embroidery, beading, alef-bet samplers, teen workshops, exhibits of projects, wearable art, computer technology to include photographs in needle crafts and more.

FAMILY TREE PROJECT

The Chicago chapter, headed by Brenda, agrrtig4@comcast.net, is working on family trees in needlework and shared the information with all Guild chapters. Members are encouraged to do accurate research for these ancestral charts, through JewishGen (http://www.jewishgen.org), and other web sources.

"We examined different styles of trees; branches rather than leaves were preferred," says Brenda. Instructions were provided on graphing names, dates of birth and death, and it was suggested that the canvas or quilt be long, with sufficient space for the tree, and the ancestral country design at its root. A circular layout worked best for the descendant chart.

Among suggested symbols: country flags of the relevant time period, occupations, marriage (the infinity symbol), gravestones, transportation such as ships, outline maps of states or countries with stars marking the place of arrival. Ancestors could also be identified by names, occupations, or even by figures in historical or ethnic clothing.

For places of arrival, Brenda suggested the Statue of Liberty, and since her group is in Chicago, the Great Lakes and Maxwell Street.

Family branches could be identified by different colors. If, for example, a person is using yellow for the paternal line and red for the maternal line, the children of this branch would have blended yellow/red fibers.

For those who wish to quilt in Israel, there is now a real quilting shop called Pissot, on Moshav Kidron near Gedera, run by Nurit Kapara (08-859-4237), a member of Accent Quilters. Her shop offers all the supplies a quilter might need, along with workshops and exhibits.

For some ideas, try this link: http://www.familytreequilts.com/ familytreeproductspage.htm.

THE FUTURE

What a marvelous heirloom to hand down through the generations! Some creative ideas include a family tree quilt, a wall-hanging of a family's major branches, a framed embroidery sampler recording the birth of a new baby and its parents, grandparents, great-grandparents; or a similar design for a bride and groom and their respective families.

How about a holiday tablecloth cross-stitched with several generations and appropriate holiday symbols? A talit bag with several generations recorded, can link the past with the Jewish present and future, or even a contemporary talit covered with the branches of family.

As soon as I heard about this project, I had a vision of doing the Dardashti family tree using Persian rug floral motifs. What an inspiration!

There are many ideas for incorporating family history research into contemporary life. Now I'm thinking of beginning a piece on our Dardashti family, using the traditional Isfahan carpet motifs, where the family originates.

For more information http://www.pomegranateguild.org.

It's All Relative invites readers' inquiries and comments. Contact Schelly at schelly@allrelative.net.

EVENTS

JFRA Ra'anana
7.30 pm, Wednesday, May 12
Program to be announced.
Beit Fischer, 5 Klausner St., Ra'anana
Info, Ingrid, ingrid@genealogy.org.il, or 09-745-0456.

IGS Netanya
8 pm, Monday, May 24
Eva Floersheim: "Child survivors of the Holocaust: The search for family roots and identities."
AACI, 28 Shmuel Hanatziv, Netanya. Visitors welcome.
Info, Joe Isaacs, isaacsj@netvision.net.il, or 09-882-8402.

24th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy
July 4-9, Jerusalem.
On line registration:
http://www.ortra.com/jgen2004

6 MILLION STITCHES

Another fascinating project with many forms of needlework involved a worldwide group of men and women, Jewish and non-Jewish, who came together in 1998 to commemorate and honor Holocaust survivors and victims, and those who risked their lives to save others.

Israeli participants were fiber artists Mirjam Bruck-Cohen of Haifa and Ayelet Lindenstrauss Larsen, who now lives in the US.

The group was brought together by the enthusiasm of the late Rita Lenkins Hawkins, known as Rita Needle, who died before the project was completed. Rita's inspiration resulted in the current 32 projects with directions. Rita had hoped for enough projects to contain 6 million stitches; currently there are some 1,067,000 stitches.

www.6millionstitches.clicksitebuilder.com/, offers photographs of finished projects and directions. Those who decide to make one are asked to contribute $1 per project to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., http://www.ushmm.org, in memory of Rita.

The online gallery offers directions for quilts, wall hangings, samplers, wedding handkerchiefs, ribbon embroidery, beadwork, crocheted kippot, embroidered matza holders and mezuzuot, pot holders, knit challah covers, black work, counted thread work and more.

Posted on April 19, 2004.

(Reprinted with permission of the author. Originally published April 16, 2004,
in the Metro Israel weekly/Jerusalem Post)