Purim, the Jewish holiday of costumes, festive food, hamantaschen and the Book of Esther, falls this year on March 20. We have begun preparing our annual oatmeal containers that we decorate, fill with edible treats and hand out to a few friends. My daughter created the scene above; I scanned it into the computer, and we plan to print it in a variety of sizes to paste unto the containers.
If you are celebrating, have you done anything to get ready? Any thoughts on the upcoming holiday? Questions?
A drawing by my daughter: what does this ballet dancer and Ancient Egypt have in common? Perhaps someone who knows ancient Egyptian history can help. Or maybe you are familiar with some midrashim related to parshat Shmot? (I’m not, but I gather that’s how my daughter got the idea).
Pumpkin, detail from watercolor painting of Three Squash, 2009
Or any other holiday or reason to gather and eat. I like collecting recipes. Maybe one day I’ll actually try some of these.
Two of my children have paintings on display at the Highland Park Public Library in November. These are not the ones in this post; my son, who did the paper airplane landscape above, has tall, surrealistic pencils on display.
My daughter has fuchsia flowers painted on a bright blue background at the library. The ice cream painting above may look familiar to loyal blog readers; yes, the students copied were inspired by my painting of ice cream from last spring. Thanks for coming up with that flattering idea, Jill Caporlingua, and for being a devoted, creative and energetic art teacher.
Pajamas, watercolor on paper, 2010 by Leora Wenger
The inspiration for this watercolor was a possible post on networking for my tech biz blog. The idea is many people who work at home would rather spend the whole day in pajamas than attend a networking meeting. I’m not sure this is obviously pajamas; my husband said a blanket? a jacket? before I pointed to the pajamas that were draped over a chair all week in plain sight.
If nothing else, it got me focused on a painting all week. I had been having artist’s block for several months.
Click on each thumbnail to find out more about the siman (symbol) of food that is eaten the first night of Rosh Hashana:
Simanim for Rosh Hashana
Some people use the head of a lamb (that we be like the head and not as the tail). I now have a post on dates. And I may put out celery, for a raise in salary. Past post of simanim details here.
Here is a post from G6 of new fruit for the 2nd night of Rosh Hashana. I bought a sabra, a papaya, some fresh figs and a starfruit. The idea is you need a fruit that you haven’t eaten all year, so you can make the blessing called “shehiyanu.”
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is in less than one month. So I started looking at past posts I wrote about the holiday. I have an idea for a new way to present the simanim (symbols) – I plan to post it next week.
Ilana-Davita wrote part one of Jewish History in Hamburg. She also has a fascinating photo of a kosher dining room, where Jewish passengers ate before traveling to America in the early 20th century.
I read Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – she has led a difficult life, and what she has to say is not easy to hear, but she is a good writer and her story is gripping. I read the book in only two days. I can’t say I agree with her conclusions, but her story of growing up in Somalia, Kenya and Saudi Arabia, then running away to Holland because she doesn’t want to marry the man her father has chosen for her is quite a tale. I amazed that she has made it as far as she has in life (at one point, she was a member of Dutch Parliament; now she is a fellow at American Enterprise Institute).
