Candlesticks in Rhode Island (and a non-candlesticked woman of valor)

  By Ruth Ellen Gruber Over the weekend, I visited friends in Rhode Island who took me to look at several Jewish cemeteries. I was interested in seeing whether, and if so how, the iconography of candlesticks marking the graves of women was found in America as well as eastern and central Europe. I had [...]

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The Jewish Cemetery in Newport: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

By Ruth Ellen Gruber I’ve decided to start posting poetry written about Jewish cemeteries. It’s a little off-topic for this web site, but the poems that I will posting reflect the power of place and imagery in a remarkable way. Many writers, and artists, too, have been inspired by these places — the Old Jewish [...]

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My photo exhibit is up at Penn State

By Ruth Ellen Gruber Just a note to advise that my photo exhibit, “Remnants and Renaissance: Photographs by Ruth Ellen Gruber of Europe’s Jewish Heartland”, is now up and viewable at Penn State Harrisburg library’s Schwab Family Holocaust Reading Room. The show is small, but runs until May 1 — and I give a gallery [...]

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Candles and my cousin Nancy

By Ruth Ellen Gruber I posted here (and included video) of the Women’s Torah Project in Seattle — one way that women are reclaiming and refashioning Jewish tradition from a female perspective. My cousin Nancy was a proud part of this project. I asked her what her relationship to candle-lighting had been, growing up, and [...]

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New photos have gone up

By Ruth Ellen Gruber I’ve just put up some new photos on this site — mainly in the Ukraine  (Sadhora and Stari Sambir) and Romania (Suceava, Piatra Neamt) sections. I’ll be putting up some more images soon.

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Article (eventually) to be published

By Ruth Ellen Gruber I’ve been in touch today with the Institute for Jewish History in Austria. I’m taking part in the Institute’s annual Summer Academy in Vienna this July, but before that I’ve just agreed to write an article based on my “Candlesticks” project for their journal.

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Different Tombstone Art

By Ruth Ellen Gruber Though the focus of this site and project is the representation of women in Jewish tombstone art, and particularly the use of candlesticks, it is interesting to see how women (and men) are portrayed artistically in other tombstone carving. New England — where I currently am, on a fellowship at Brandeis [...]

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Transmitting Tradition: The Women’s Torah Project

By Ruth Ellen Gruber One of the themes I am exploring in this project is the transmission of tradition. My great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother whose tombs I found and photographed in the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, Romania were buried under gravestones marked with candlesticks, denoting the signal role of  women in Jewish tradition and practice of [...]

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I Start Fellowship at Brandeis to Work on This Project

By Ruth Ellen Gruber I arrived at Brandeis University today (after an overnight flight from Los Angeles to Boston) to take up a Scholar in Residence fellowship at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute to work on this project — representing the woman in Jewish tombstone art. I’ll be here until the end of February or beginning [...]

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