Gilad's Album

I'm always very pleased to hear from a returning customer, particularly one who wants to order her THIRD Bar Mitzvah album (the next one, if she wants one, will be for a Bat Mitzvah). I have already made albums for Adir and Omri. This time it was Gilad's turn to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah.

Mum asked me to create an album that opens the H​ebrew​ way, from right to left, and she wanted the Bar Mitzvah boy to be shown wearing tefillin. Jewish men start wearing tefillin, or phylacteries, just before their Bar Mitzvah. They consist of two leather boxes with parchment with biblical passages inside. Gilad is right-handed so he is wearing his tefillin on his left arm. He is also wearing them on his head, and the straps are hanging down over his white shirt.

Gilad, Mum told me, likes Krav Maga (the self-defence system developed for the Israel Defence Forces), playing with Rubik's Cubes, hacking cell phones, going to Scouts, drawing, cycling and playing games on his Nvidia Shield tablet.​ He is currently quite curly haired, she said, though admittedly those curls were "tamed" by the time of his Bar Mitzvah.

I added the badge of the Tsofim Datiyim (the religious Scouts) to the cover, along with a small illustration of Gilad's bike, his phone and tablet, and some paper and pencils to illustrate his love of drawing. Gilad can be seen in his white Krav Maga - I.C.F. t-shirt, playing with a Rubik's Cube.

I also cut out several light blue striped tallitot (the large sheet-like fringed prayer shawl worn during the morning prayers which some boys begin wearing for the daily prayers from the age of Bar Mitzvah) and placed them in two corners of the cover and on several pages inside the album. Some of the inside pages were also illustrated to cover Gilad's various interests.

The first page, which as a Hebrew book opened on the rightmost page (the opposite of an English book), shows some Krav Maga sparring gloves, followed by a colourful Rubik's Cube, and then Gilad's OnePlus X​ phone and Nvidia Shield tablet, above. Next I created a Scouting-themed page showing a little green tent and a campfire burning close-by. Finally I cut out a tiny blue​ bike, just as Gilad's brothers had in their albums.

* This post has been shared on Our World, Wednesday around the World, Life Thru the Lens, Create with Joy and Seasons.