The delightful world of paper cutting

Last Friday I was lucky enough to participate in a workshop held by Zipora Neeman, a paper cut artist and teacher who creates the most beautiful traditional Jewish paper cuts. Her workshop took place at Limmud, a conference based on the theme of Jewish learning and held for the first time in my home city of Modi'in. I was delighted to discover Zipora's workshop on the itinerary and was excited to have a go at something quite new to me.Zipora outlined the history of the craft of traditional paper cutting, which can be traced back to the 14th century in Spain. Afterwards we chose which template we wished to base our designs on and set to work. Zipora is a retired school teacher, which was very apparent in the way she instructed us. She checked each and every stage that we worked on and we were certainly not allowed to rush ahead in case obvious mistakes were made. Everything was very clearly explained, of course making it all seem so simple! It would be nice to tell you that what you can see here is all my original work. Well, I did create this particular paper cut, and am indeed very proud of it, but it is based on Zipora's design of a hamsa - a symbol or talisman used by both people of Islamic and Jewish faiths, thought to ward off the evil eye and offer protection from the hand of God.
We were shown how and where to create the intricate design inside the hamsa's outline; where to add a line or a curve, leaves, pomegranates and birds. My finishing touch, Zipora's suggestion, was to hand cut the Hebrew letters חי inside the Star of David. The word chai, spelt by these two letters, means "living" and also appears in the slogan "`am yisrael chai!" ("The people of Israel live!").
I won't tell you that my finished paper cut, below, looked terribly different from those of the other participants, who were of varying ages. However, I can tell you that it was a great workshop to participate in. It was fascinating to learn how to create a simple paper cut and my head is bursting with ideas of my own now! Thanks Zipora.