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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »

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 [...]

Read Full Post »