Chaim

Back in August 2024 a very organised customer wrote to tell me that her son, Chaim, was preparing for his Bar Mitzvah in January 2025. She had seen my work in the Facebook group Israeli shops to purchase from. The group was set up back in October 2023, in the aftermath of the outbreak of war in Israel. It currently has 82K members worldwide who are keen to buy handmade items from Israeli sellers. My customer wanted to commission a custom piece to mark her son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah. "I really love your work and know my son will, too!" she wrote.

After discussing the various options with her, my customer decided upon a larger piece that she could mount on a board for the Bar Mitzvah party guests to sign, and which she could then frame after the event. She wanted me to show her son wearing tefillin. He also loves biking, wants to fly and engineer airplanes, and is super talented at LEGO, she told me. She requested some musical notes and a food item. After checking with the Bar Mitzvah boy's siblings, they decided on sushi. Finally, she suggested that the centre square of the piece should be dark blue and her son should be wearing an aqua or lighter blue T-shirt with his current daily uniform of adidas joggers :)

I showed Chaim putting on his tefillin. There is a leather box containing parchment with biblical passages on his forehead and upper left arm. Different reasons are given for the seven straps wrapped around his arm below his elbow, but one suggestion is that they signify the seven days of the week. 

On Chaim's right there is some LEGO and a platter with sushi on it and some chopsticks. To his left there is an EL AL plane (EL AL is Israel's national airline), some music notes and a bike. The background box is dark blue, as requested, and Chaim is wearing the light blue shirt and adidas joggers with the important three white stripes.

My customer was delighted with the piece. "The picture arrived today and we love it!" she wrote to me. "Thank you so much. Chaim appreciates every detail of it, and we can't wait to display it at his Bar Mitzvah and afterwards."

She later sent me another message, along with the fabulous photos included in this post.

"Hi Lisa, the Bar Mitzvah was this weekend and I wanted to send you these photos from Saturday night! Many people commented on how wonderful the artwork is, and Chaim is happy to have such a special keepsake!"

* This post has been shared on Happiness is Homemade,  Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Tuesday Turn About, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop and Creative Muster Link-Up.