Posting new pictures — from Poland

By Ruth Ellen Gruber I recently returned from a trip to the far southeastern corner of Poland — that sharp, elongated triangle bordered by Ukraine and Slovakia. I was there, based in the town of Sanok, to write an article about the project to built a replica of the roof and ceiling of the destroyed [...]

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More thoughts on candlestick typology

  By Ruth Ellen Gruber The basis of this project is the collection of photographs of candlesticks on Jewish tombstones that I myself have taken, in Romania, Ukraine, Poland and elsewhere. These images show a vast range of artistry, skill and invention in the portrayal of the candlestick motif in denoting Jewish women. But they [...]

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Pearl Gruber Kaplan, RIP

By Ruth Ellen Gruber My Aunt, Pearl Gruber Kaplan, passed away Friday in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of 94. She was my father’s oldest sister; the oldest of my immigrant grandparents’ seven children; a military veteran; a mother; a grandmother and great-grandmother; a highly independent woman who lived her life on her own [...]

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New Page on Candlestick Typology

I just want to attention anyone reading this blog to a new permanent page I have created called “Candle Types,” on the typology of candlesticks on tombstones. I have posted representative pictures of various types of candlesticks. They range from what I would call “classic” Shabbos candles — two matched candles in individual candle-holders — [...]

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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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Hanukkah Menorahs — a different kind of candlestick

  By Ruth Ellen Gruber In Tablet Magazine, editor Alana Newhouse recently wrote about the variety of Hanukkah menorahs, the eight-branched (or nine, if you count the Shammas) candelabras lit for the Hanukkah holiday — one candle a night, with increasing candles until on the last night all eight are lit. Throughout the vagaries of [...]

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Candlesticks in Piotrkow Trybunalski

Just a note — I just added a photo gallery of some of the lovely carved candlesticks (and other decoration) I photographed at the end of June  in the Jewish cemetery in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland.

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Candlesticks in my mother’s self-portrait

In one of the several self-portraits my mother, the artist Shirley Moskowitz, drew or painted, she used collage material to enhance a print and tell autobiographical stories. The materials include old photographs of her family, snippets of old paintings and drawings, writings and other imagery evoking the memories of a lifetime. Prominent among them is [...]

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Article on Candlesticks in Tablet Magazine

Tablet Magazine has published my article on this project, along with a slide show. It was the first week in September, and in cowboy boots and jeans, camera slung over my shoulder, I crunched through the springy thick tangle of undergrowth that carpets the old Jewish cemetery in Radauti, a market town in the far [...]

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Braided Candlesticks on a Great-Great-Grandmother’s Stone

At the tomb of my great-great grandmother (my Grandma Becky’s grandmother) Chaya Dvoira Herer Halpern, in the Radauti Jewish cemetery. She died Feb. 22, 1905 at the age of 69) (This is a duplicate of a post to my Jewish Heritage blog) By Ruth Ellen Gruber Sept. 8, 2009 My cousins all left, but I [...]

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