Adath Jeshurun entryway commission complete!

I'm so pleased to share photos of the new entryway at Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Louisville, Kentucky. Last year the congregation completed work on their new ark doors, which are an adaptation of my "Burning Bush: Flame On" papercut (see here for details and pix), and now five of my "paper tefillah" papercut series have been produced in metal for the entryway to their synagogue.

From left to right are V'ahavta, Shalom, Yotzeir, Avot, and Mi Chamocha; you can see the whole set of 16 paper tefillah papercuts in this PDF.

They are EXTRA LARGE and very well-executed; I'm so pleased to have my work included in the redesign of the synagogue.The ark doors and the entryway are both featured on the front page of Adath Jeshurun's redesigned website.

Teaching Papercutting at Camp Newman, 2012 (Part 4)

This is the last post on my 2012 residency at URJ Camp Newman! The campers in the Hagigah yetzirah (major) had time for one last project — a group mezuzah, to which everyone would contribute. (A mezuzah is traditionally a small box attached to the inside of a doorway of one's house; ours, becing a papercut, will be placed next to a doorway at camp.) They took turns picking a spot on the oversized sheet of watercolor stock, drawing in a design (some chose to include parts of their mizrach or midrash projects, while others came up with new imagery to use), cutting it out, and backing it with colored papers and comics. In the center is a shin, behind which is the klaf text inside every mezuzah (paragraphs of the Shema and V'ahavta prayers).

Last, I am pleased to share another mezuzah — another group project, created on Faculty Art Night by the faculty and staff at camp while we were there (instituted by my wife, who was Faculty Dean this year for our session).

Rabbis, educators, medical staff, artists, spouses, and other camp adults contributed in the same way the campers did — but we did it all in a couple of hours one night after the campers went to bed. Here are some shots of the group at work...

...and voila — the final faculty/staff mezuzah!