Category Archives for Judaica

Dayenu!

This weekend we made it through the beginning of Pesach, a.k.a. Passover, complete with 2 seders and a requisite (in our house) viewing of The Prince of Egypt. I could and probably should write a whole post on the topic of The Prince of Egypt, the star-studded 1998 animated masterpiece of DreamWorks SKG – otherwise known as Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen, i.e., the Jew Crew. For now, suffice it to say that it’s pretty easy to distinguish Old Testament stories being retold by Christians from Hebrew Bible stories being retold by Jews, and this one scores high on the authenticity scale.

Anyway, Passover. While I was hoping to have some newer product listings to share by now, I’m bringing you a Passover card from the backlist (created in 2023) since I don’t think I ever wrote about it here.

This exuberant pastel design makes use of one of the best-known passages in the Passover Seder:
Ilu hotzianu mi-Mitzrayim, Dayenu!
If God had merely brought us out of Egypt, that would have been enough for us.

Inside reads “Wishing you a joyful Passover” in English and “Chag kasher v’sameach” (the traditional Passover greeting) in Hebrew.

Hebrew blessing stones

I am so excited to announce a completely new product: frosted glass stones with inspirational Hebrew words on them. I’m calling them Hebrew Blessing Stones.

Each stone is uniquely shaped and features three styles of text printed in white or black ink – the Hebrew word plus the English transliteration and translation. The translucent stones are about 1.25 inches in diameter. Order a set of all 10, or mix and match different quantities.

I’m starting with 10 different messages in this assortment:

  • Shalom – Peace (deep blue)
  • Emunah – Faith (light blue)
  • Menuchat HaNefesh – Peace of Mind (aqua)
  • Refuah – Healing (green)
  • Brachah – Blessing (purple)
  • Tzedek – Justice (amethyst)
  • Ahavah – Love (red)
  • Hakarat HaTov – Gratitude (purple)
  • Neshamah – Soul (white)
  • Zachor – Remember (black)

All have white text except Neshamah/Soul, which features black text on a white frosted glass stone.

What you give your attention to is what you get more of, and each of these inspirational stones will speak to you differently. Carry a stone with you as a focus for personal reflection and intention throughout the day, or place it in your favorite meditation spot as a beautiful reminder.

My manufacturing partner for these stones is Lifeforce Glass in Winchester, Massachusetts—not far from my old stomping grounds in Cambridge/Somerville. When I encountered these folks, I immediately knew exactly what I was going to create with their help. If you need your own custom assortment, definitely call on them! Ask for Josh and tell him I sent you.

I’m already thinking ahead to the next set of 10, so if there’s another sentiment you would like to carry with you, let me know your suggestions! (I am also thinking of offering a set of 10 Sefirot/Chakra Stones, but we’ll see how this set goes first.)

And, if you’ve read this far, you may be interested to know that I am officially confirmed to appear in the Art Fair at the 2025 Greater Chicago Jewish Festival. It’ll be taking place in just over 2 months – Sunday, June 8, 11am to 5pm – at the Cook County Forest Preserve at Oakton St. in Morton Grove, IL. I look forward to displaying my Blessing Stones and hopefully some other new items as well, in addition to all the old favorites. Mark your calendars and stay tuned!

Miniature haggadahs, and other dollhouse Judaica

When I started my Etsy Judaica shop as an unemployed newlywed in 2014, I had no idea that “miniature books” would eventually be an entire category in my product line. But in 2017, I got a message from a past buyer: “Do you have a set of Tanya or the Talmud in 1:12 scale please? Any other Judaica?”

I didn’t, but I love Jewish books and I have always loved miniatures, so I figured, why not me?

It took a couple years for me to work out the specifics, but I ended up creating over 80 pieces of 12+ different books for her, including multiple sets of Talmud volumes, a set of Midrash Rabbah, a JPS Tanakh, an Etz Hayim Humash (see also: Eitz Chayim Chumash), Passover haggadahs, the Five Megillot, B’Kol Echad benchers, and, yes, a five-volume set of Tanya (not yet posted for general sale, but if you’re looking for one, hit me up).

  • A library of Judaica in the palm of my hand.
  • Miniature books shown with a U.S. quarter for scale.
  • Cutting the foamcore blocks for the centers.
  • Paper covers awaiting their book blocks.
  • Miniature Haggadahs.
  • Sets of miniature books packaged for shipping.
  • Yes, I bought a dollhouse bookcase to stage the books in.
  • Rabbi Mork from Ork (the Orker Rav) studying Tractate Brachot.
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Jewish sympathy cards

I’ve been meaning for a while to post my new designs for Jewish sympathy cards, and, well, this seems like the right week.

Links on Etsy for more information:

Insides of all the cards read, “May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem” in English and Hebrew. 

Shabbat shalom, all. May we all be comforted.

Dvar Torah for Matot-Masei 5782

This week we close out the book of Bamidbar with a double parshah, Matot, meaning “Tribes”, and Masei, meaning “Travels” or “Trips” – this is the same word found in the name of our congregational religious school that we call Masa B’Yachad, or “Journey Together”.

This is a pretty technical parsha, and while there are some action scenes, there’s also a lot of material that doesn’t really support the narrative structure. Matot opens with some legal discussion about vows (specifically by women, and when they do and don’t count); and it proceeds to a Netflix-worthy scene of the Israelites’ slaughter of their enemies. But then it goes into this extremely detailed accounting of the spoils of the battle, how much was allocated to each tribe, and exactly what percentage was levied off to support the Levi’im. This is the parsha that makes you ask, “what would 675,000 sheep actually look like, and how would you possibly go about counting them all??” …lest we forget that we are, after all, nearing the end of the book of Numbers.

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Free printable Passover cards

I made a new Passover card design this year that I’ve been thinking about for a little while. It’s a seder plate design, but instead of the traditional Hebrew item designations in the center, I chose a word expressing the symbolism of each item.

  • Karpas – Greens – Renewal
  • Zeroah – Shankbone – Strength
  • Maror – Bitter Herb – Suffering
  • Chazeret – Lettuce – Bitterness
  • Charoset – Mortar – Building
  • Beitzah – Egg – Rebirth
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Book project launch: Into a Jewish Holiday Year with Yoga

In January of 2021, I was tagged by some friends into a Facebook thread from the illustrious Delia Sherman, on behalf of a friend looking for a graphic designer to help produce a self-published book with some Hebrew in it. Since that’s totally my niche, I was pleased when the co-author reached out to me the next day for some more information. That was my introduction to yoga teacher Sharon Epstein, her rabbi Tara Feldman, and their book project, which would become a labor of love for me as well: Into a Jewish Holiday Year with Yoga: A Workbook and Guided Journey for Body, Mind, and Soul (2021; ISBN 979-8-9850271-0-5; USD $19.95).

The ikar, or kernel, of the book is that these two delightful and insightful women have teamed up to structure a yoga experience around the Jewish holiday cycle. For each of 12 holidays, they had put together some basic introductory context, then drawn out a deep underlying conceptual theme, and matched it with a set of yoga poses to literally embody that theme. They also provided a guided meditation and some journaling prompts to round out the internal experience of each holiday.

Mind you, I have spent a total of about 2 hours on a yoga mat in my life, but I have a visceral appreciation for the rhythms of the Jewish calendar. We are souls and we are bodies. Bringing together the spiritual and the somatic brings depth to both perceptions. It was a real gift to get to be a part of this project and help Sharon and Tara activate its full potential.

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Esther: For such a time as this

Tonight and tomorrow is Purim, the holiday celebrating the deliverance of the Jews of Persia from the evil machinations of the King’s vizier. There are four central mitzvot (commandments) of this holiday, but the most iconic one is the reading of the book of Esther, known as the Megillah (Scroll).

Megillat Esther has a special trope (melody) that I’ve never learned, but this year, we’re all reading out of books at home via Zoom, and our rabbi asked me if I would take on reading chapter 4. This chapter, as it happens, has several verses that are read in the the trope used for the book of Eicha (Lamentations) on Tisha B’Av, which I learned a couple years ago, so I figured that was a sign that I should step up.

This chapter also includes a verse that has always resonated with me. Queen Esther (in the palace) and her uncle Mordechai (protesting out in the town square) exchange a series of messages via Hatach, the chamberlain, about the looming crisis for the Jews. Mordechai implores Esther to use her privileged status and access to the king to intervene for her people, saying, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to power for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14)

For this image, I wanted a watercolor wash background, and since it was surprisingly hard to find a suitable free version, I created my own in Photoshop. Drop me an email or a comment if you want a pointer to the exact brush settings. Then I darkened it up to improve the contrast.

I saved my images as grayscale TIFFs so I could apply the magenta color to them in InDesign, but WordPress is making me post them here as JPEGs. Do with them what you will – these backgrounds are free for personal or commercial use – but please find a way to link back to schultzyakovetz.com if you want to maintain good Internet karma.

The script font I chose is Selima, a lovely free brush script created by Jroh Creative. The block face is classic Goudy Old Style and the Hebrew is the beautiful Escritura Hebrew Demibold by Ricardo Santos.

May we all use our power and privilege to do good anytime we find ourselves in a position to do so. Who knows but that we were placed there for just such a time?

Now, off to finish cramming that reading! Purim sameach!

Free Printable: Grade K-1 “My Book About Chanukah”

Here in Northwest Indiana, my kindergartener is the only Jewish kid in her class. As many of you have no doubt experienced, that makes her the go-to for educating the class on Jewish holidays – even at age 5.

Yesterday, her teacher asked if she would read a book about Chanukah to the class this morning (fully remote of course). No problem, we thought; we have several wonderful books on hand, we’ll pick one out. However, looking them over at bedtime quickly made it clear that there wasn’t one among them that she could read fluently by herself.

So what does Mama do? Get up Friday morning and put one together! I tried to approach it through the lens of what she would tell the class about Chanukah from her perspective.

I made it 8 pages to fit on 2 letter-sized sheets. Adobe’s Acrobat Reader should let you print this on the “Booklet” setting to come out right for folding, but just in case your printer software isn’t up to the task, I also made a PDF with the pages already doubled up (you still have to print it double-sided though).

Little one was very pleased and read it perfectly on the first try. Note that she is (of course) a fairly precocious reader for Grade K, but while I’m no literacy specialist, it would probably work well for any early readers.

I set the type in Futura Book. The illustrations are courtesy of Adobe Stock (#179419911).

Happy Chanukah!

 

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“The more women, the more witchcraft”

“[Rabbi Hillel] used to say: The more flesh, the more worms; The more property, the more anxiety; The more wives [nashim = women], the more witchcraft; The more female slaves, the more lewdness; The more slaves, the more robbery; [But] the more Torah, the more life; The more sitting [in the company of scholars], the more wisdom; The more counsel, the more understanding; The more charity, the more peace.”
– Pirkei Avot 2:7

Marbeh nashim, marbeh cheshafim. Who doesn’t love a good out-of-context quote from the Talmud? The first time I saw this aphorism attributed to Rabbi Hillel, I thought “that can’t be real!” and ran to verify it, but here it is – just in time for October.

I’m pretty sure this passage was intended to address the concept of intentional simplicity, and how our priorities shape our lives. However, it’s also clearly directed only at men; it mentions women twice, but both times only in their roles as objects possessed by men: nashim (wives) and shefachot (handmaids). Nashim doesn’t just mean “wife”, though, it is the plural of isha and means “women” generally, so let’s run with the enjoyable surface reading here.

I created this More Women More Witchcraft design as a smaller 5×7 piece to fit comfortably into a collection, whether it’s your Halloween decor or a year-round Jewitch display.  If you’d like it scaled differently, you can always request a custom order for a print in your preferred size.

Etsy listing

Marbeh nashim, marbeh cheshafim: “The more women, the more witchcraft”. – Rabbi Hillel, Pirkei Avot 2:7.