Rosh Hashanah 5773

On Sunday evening my family and I will begin celebrating the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah, which means ‘Head of the Year’ in Hebrew, falls in the month of Tishrei, which is the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar and is believed to be the month in which God created the world.

The holiday marks the beginning of ten days when Jewish people think very carefully about their behaviour during the past year. We remember what we have done, ask and pray to be forgiven for any bad deeds and promise to be better next year.

A lot of time is spent in the synagogue. We hear the blowing of the shofar (a ram's horn), an ancient musical instrument that is blown into like a trumpet. One hundred notes are blown on the shofar in the synagogue on each day of Rosh Hashanah and the blasts make an urgent sound that remind us to reflect on the past year and the year to come.

Throughout Rosh Hashanah no bitter or sour food is eaten. People eat sweet food, symbolizing the desire to have a new year filled with sweetness. Special meals for the holiday include pomegranates, apples dipped in honey (thus my paper bees!), and challah bread in a round loaf to symbolise the circle of life and of the year.

The traditional Hebrew greeting on Rosh Hashanah is שנה טובה ומתוקה (Shana Tovah u'Metukah) literally meaning "a good and sweet year." That being said, I would like to wish all my Jewish customers and friends a very happy and peaceful holiday, and, in the words of the traditional blessing "May You Be Written and Sealed for a Good Year."

Rosh Hashanah 5770

We have been away again for a few days, the last short trip of the school holidays, and I have some gorgeous photographs to show you of parts of northern Israel, including Lake Kinneret, or The Sea of Galilee, and The Jordan River. These, however, will wait till my next post as I want to remind you that Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, falls on September 19-20 this year, and is therefore rapidly approaching.
The festival is full of special symbols and customs. On Rosh Hashanah we eat apples dipped in honey. The apples remind us of the roundness of the year and express our hope that the coming year will be fruitful. The honey represents the wish for a sweet year. Pomegranates are also an important symbol. The 613 seeds of the pomegranate represent the number of good deeds which we have tried to do over the past year and should do during the new year.
Here at 'Handmade in Israel' I have been preparing some cards showing all these special symbols and they are available in my shop now. They come in a set of five. Each card is hand cut and no two cards are exactly the same.
Rosh Hashanah is a great time to catch up with friends and relatives and let them know about all your news and any upcoming events, so please drop by to order some cards now.

A time for reflection

This coming weekend my family and I will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I have spent half of my morning battling the crowds at the supermarket and I think that the remainder of this week is not going to see much crafting, but rather a little cooking and some preparation for the festivities.
In general this holiday is celebrated with festive meals, prayers and self-examination. Rather than the rowdy new year celebrations of December 31st, this holiday is a time for reflection. Each person takes the time to review how they behaved in the past year during the ten days prior to Yom Kippur. During this time period there is the traditional blowing of the shofar. The shofar is a horn made from one of the horns of any kosher animal, except a cow. It is meant to remind those that hear the horn they are being examined by God for their behavior in the past year.
Family meals are filled with many symbolic foods during Rosh Hashanah. Foods like apples and honey represent the sweetness of the new year. Fish heads can be served to literally symbolize ‘the head of the new year', though I am a vegetarian so it doesn't happen in our house! Lots of fruit is served up at the meal to help symbolize a fruitful new year, and other foods that are mentioned in the bible are served as well, such as dates and pomegranates.
My Rosh Hashanah cards, featuring many of the special symbols I have mentioned above, made another treasury appearance recently in a beautiful collection called 'A New Year for Peace'. They can be seen on the bottom row, on the left. The traditional Hebrew greeting on Rosh Hashanah is שנה טובה (Shana Tova) literally meaning "A good year". That being said, I would like to wish you all a very happy and peaceful new year. May you be written down in the Book of Life for a good year.

Rosh Hashanah 5771

On Wednesday evening my family and I will begin celebrating the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays, the most solemn days of the Jewish year, which conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Members of the EtsyChai team have been busy creating some beautiful items for the holiday - a holiday which sees us eating apples and honey to represent the sweetness of the new year - and I was delighted to see one of my Rosh Hashanah card sets included in a recent treasury (below).
I would like to wish all my Jewish customers and friends a very happy, healthy and successful new year - 'Shana Tova U’Metuka' ("May you have a happy and sweet year").

Rosh Hashanah 5775

On Wednesday evening my family and I will begin celebrating the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah, which means ‘Head of the Year’ in Hebrew, falls in the month of Tishrei, which is the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar and is believed to be the month in which God created the world.

In general this holiday is celebrated with festive meals, prayers and self-examination. Rather than the rowdy new year celebrations of December 31st, this holiday is a time for reflection. Each person takes the time to review how they behaved in the past year during the ten days prior to Yom Kippur. During this time period there is the traditional blowing of the shofar. The shofar is a horn made from one of the horns of any kosher animal, except a cow. It is meant to remind those that hear the horn that they are being examined by God for their behaviour in the past year.

Throughout Rosh Hashanah no bitter or sour food is eaten. People eat sweet food, symbolizing the desire to have a new year filled with sweetness. Special meals for the holiday include pomegranates, apples dipped in honey (thus my paper bees!), and challah bread in a round loaf, to symbolise the circle of life and of the year.

Whilst we're on the subject of food, it's been a long time since I posted anything food related here, but a recent cooking disaster was turned around with the discovery of a yummy new recipe which I thought I'd share with you. Last week I overcooked the lentils for a salad I was making, so searched the web for an idea of what to do with a pot of slightly mushy green lentils. A Macheesmo recipe for Red Lentil Falafels popped up, using lentils, instead of chickpeas, as a new twist on an old favourite. The falafel were easy to make, very tasty and turned out to be a great new addition to my kid's lunchboxes.

Bon appétit, or b'tayavon as we say in Hebrew, and whilst I am at it, 'Shana Tova U’Metuka' ("May you have a happy and sweet year"). I would like to wish all my Jewish customers and friends a very happy and peaceful holiday, and, in the words of the traditional blessing, "May You Be Written and Sealed for a Good Year."

Pomegranates

I recently posted some photos on facebook which I took on a walk Mister Handmade in Israel and I went on in the Rosh HaAyin forest. One photo got much more attention than the others - a photo of some beautiful red pomegranates dangling from a laden tree in the remains of Mahtzevet HaShezafim, the Jujube Tree Quarry. So much interest in these pomegranates inspired me to create a papercut of them and this is the result.

My design is embellished with pomegranates and flowers. In the Jewish faith, pomegranates are traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) because it has 613 seeds, which coincide with the 613 commandments of the Torah. Furthermore, the pomegranate represents fruitfulness. We use them in our Rosh Hashanah meals as a positive omen.
The word "Shalom", which appears in both English and Hebrew, like many Hebrew words has more than one meaning. Shalom means peace. However "peace" is only one small part of the meaning. "Shalom" is also used to both greet people and to say goodbye, but it means much more than "peace, hello or goodbye"...
Shalom is rooted in the word שלם (shaleim) which means wholeness, completion, wellness, perfection. When we are "at peace" we feel a sense of "wholeness."

With Rosh Hashanah approaching, this papercut would make a great gift for the holiday, or for a wedding, anniversary or birthday. It is drawn and cut entirely by hand from a single sheet of Textura Recycled Bright White Card. It measures 30x21cm and fits perfectly into an IKEA frame. The backing paper can be changed, if you prefer something other than red, though I picked red as a reminder of those shiny pomegranates.

If you would like to order a papercut or take a further look, it is available right here in my Etsy shop.

* This post has been shared on Inspire Me Monday, The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), All About Home, Tuesdays with a Twist, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop, {wow me} wednesday, Keep In Touch and All Seasons.

Rosh Hashanah 5772

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sundown tomorrow. The festival lasts for two days and commemorates the creation of Adam and Eve over 5700 years ago, on the 6th day of Creation.

Rosh Hashanah is also a judgement day, when Jews believe that God balances a person's good deeds over the last year against their bad deeds, and decides what the next year will be like for them. It's a time for people to think about their priorities in life and to reflect on what has been achieved in the past year.

After services in the synagogue a special meal is eaten at home, including apples dipped in honey, a symbol of the sweet New Year that each Jew hopes lies ahead; a sweet carrot stew called a tzimmes is often served; Challah bread in a round loaf, rather than the plaited loaf served on the Sabbath, so as to symbolise a circle of life and of the year; often a pomegranate on the table because of a tradition that pomegranates have 613 seeds, one for each of the commandments that a Jew is obliged to keep.

As the Hebrew years comes to a close and a new one starts, I would like to wish all my Jewish customers and friends a very happy and sweet new year. In the words of the traditional blessings, "May this year and its misfortunes finish, and next year with all its blessings start. May you and all of Israel be inscribed in the books of life, peace happiness, blessings and good fortune."

The Blue-Arsed Fly

My customer knew exactly what she wanted on the card for her "Cracking Husband". She asked me to show him standing on a three-level medal podium. On the number 2 level she wanted me to show a chicken with no head (there's a first time for everything!). On the number 3 she wanted a blue-arsed fly (another first!). Her husband was to appear in the middle with 3 gold medals around his neck - one saying Son, one Husband and one Daddy.

I had to work on a very small scale to fit such tiny details on to this card but I am pleased to say that my customer loved it.

"Thank you for the card...it came out so well and S. loved it!" she wrote to me. "He knew what it all meant straight away and really laughed."

I must admit that I was chuckling to myself when I made that little blue-arsed fly!

Yonatan turned 15 some time ago. His mum asked me to create a card showing him playing on his PlayStation. He is also a big football fan, so I added a football and the symbol of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the big football tournament happening over his birthday. Yonatan also loves to travel. I included a picture of Big Ben on his card, along with "A Windmill In Old Amsterdam" and an aeroplane. A big number 15 marks his age.

This evening my family and I will begin celebrating the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays, the most solemn days of the Jewish year, which conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
I would like to wish all my Jewish customers and friends a very happy, healthy and successful new year - 'Shana Tova U’Metuka' ("May you have a happy and sweet year").
To read more about Rosh Hashanah, please check out my various posts about the holiday.

* This post has been shared on Sweet Inspiration Link Party, Sunday Features, All Seasons, {nifty thrifty sunday}, Happiness is Homemade, Wednesday around the World and Wednesday Link Up.

The Birds, er... Apples and the Bees

Apples and bees. Two things that seem to be taking up all my working hours at the moment. I have created so many paper versions of them this week that I can almost taste the apples and hear the bees buzzing in my ears!

'Why?' I hear you ask. Well, I mentioned in my last post that Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is early this year, falling at the beginning of September. Consequently I am busy preparing this year's designs and distributing the cards where possible, before I shortly take my leave for a family holiday.

Apples and bees have become the Rosh Hashanah symbols. Festive meals usually include apples and honey to symbolize a sweet new year, thus the reason for my frenzy of apple and bee making! I am actually really enjoying creating them. I find that repetitive work like this can be quite relaxing and doesn't require too much thought, once I have come up with an initial design.

If anyone would like to wish their Jewish family and friends happy and sweet times in the year ahead, the cards are now in my shop, available in packs of five.

In between the Rosh Hashanah crafting, I have also been working on several custom orders. I know that one of the birthdays has now passed and so, below, you can see the 70th birthday card I made for a local gentleman, a Rabbi who served as a chaplain in the U.S. Army for 20 years, and is now a tour guide to China, Vietnam, the Galapagos and various other exotic locations.

From the photo I received of him I could see that his beard is probably his most prominent facial feature. I created a little paper version of the Rabbi and showed him surrounded by some Far Eastern icons - paper lanterns, an oriental style house and one of the famous Galapagos turtles - as well as the U.S. flag and soldier and a Star of David to represent his chaplaincy work.
I haven't yet heard what the reaction was to his card but hope that he was amused, rather than insulted, by it!

Ore's Album

I never show a card or album here until after the date of the celebration has passed and so I have several albums to show you all in due course. Ore's Bar Mitzvah party has now taken place so I can start by showing you the one I made for him. He actually celebrated his Bar Mitzvah here in Israel at the end 2014 but his party was in London at the end of May! Working out which date to put on his album was a bit tricky, so my solution was to simply put the Jewish year.

The Jewish calendar not only has its own unique months, but it also numbers years differently from the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian year 2015, for instance, is roughly equivalent to the Jewish year 5775. The Jewish Year does not begin on January 1st but on the festival of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year). This year Rosh Hashanah fell on September 2014 and marked the transition from 5774 to 5775. The date I put on Ore's book is תשע"ה. Hebrew letters are sometimes used to express numbers. For example, Aleph stands for 1, Bet for 2, and so on. When a Hebrew year is written using letters, you simply add up the values of the letters. Often the year is written with an implied addition of 5,000. So the year 5775 is written as 775. The year number on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since creation, calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) back to the time of creation. To calculate the Jewish year from the Gregorian calendar, you subtract 1,240 then add 5,000. For example, if the year is 2015, subtract 1,240 to get 775, then add 5,000 to obtain the Jewish year of 5775.

Ore is into his computer, making films and using the microblogging platform Tumblr and the video-sharing website You Tube. He apparently likes eating lemony things and has a thing about Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread too! I have shown Ore sitting at a desk, using his computer. The screen on the computer is open on Tumblr and there is a photo of an iPhone on it, another of his great interests. On the desk there are a couple of lemons and a jar of Nutella. To his left is an Israeli flag and the You Tube logo, and above the computer is his school's badge.

I decorated several pages inside the album based on Ore's hobbies. The opening page shows his school's badge, some pencils and a sharpener (top). Next I crafted a paper version of the Jerusalem skyline, since Ore has strong links with Israel. More Nutella and lemons follow, along with the Tumblr and You Tube logos, and, finally, a hand holding up an iPhone completes his list of favourite things! I added a gold Star of David (Magen David) to each page, and featured them on the cover too.

My customer emailed to say "It's amazing! We love it!" when she received the album.
Happy dance.