Hebrew National
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 24x30, painted 2018 Original photograph taken - 2018 One of my dearest friends is Orthodox and she recently made a pithy remark to me that religious Jews never get to go on vacation – ‘they just have to keep kosher somewhere else.’ That is not something I struggle with but in the summer of 2018 my oldest child had returned home from a ‘gap year’ spent in Jerusalem. After nine months in Israel, Henry had discovered a newfound interest in becoming a little more religiously observant. He was keeping the Sabbath and following Kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). I was both thrilled and threatened. I was thrilled because when it comes to Judaism the trend is usually for each successive generation to observe less than their parents’ generation. It was so gratifying to know that my son’s connection to his Judaism defied the recent Pew Study findings. He was not on track to lose precious connections to our heritage (at least not now). These new observances were like a giant ‘Jewish mom victory’ for me – the ‘torch’ was passed to the next generation! But I would be dishonest if I didn’t acknowledge that I felt threatened by it as well. Was our son on his way to becoming a ‘baal tshuva’ (a secular Jew who becomes Ultra-Orthodox)? Would he stop eating in my house because it wasn’t kosher enough? Was he judging our lax observances? Does he think that we are hypocrites? Are we hypocrites?? Will he go on vacation with us still? Henry was home from Israel for a week and we immediately went to our annual cottage rental in Union Pier, Michigan. We were trying to regain our equilibrium as a family now that kashrut and the Sabbath were part of the equation (at least for him). Thankfully the local supermarket in neighboring New Buffalo had a tiny kosher section and we figured it out.
0 Comments
Shabbat Afternoon with Yehudit & Gail
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 30x40, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1977 We grew up keeping the Sabbath. Every Saturday morning, I remember putting on a dress, gathering my sticker and stationery collections in a bag and walking with my mother to shul. Sometimes the whole family went and sometimes it was just she and I. Those walks felt like an island in time - the whole world was carrying on with life as usual but we were taking break for the busy-ness of everyday and carving out a 25 hour period of rest (no phones or TV, no commerce, no driving). When we completed the 2 mile walk to Beth Tikvah I’d dart away from her, find my friends in the bathroom or sitting on the sofas in the social hall and joyfully trade fold up notecards or smelly stickers. Occasionally I’d wander into the sanctuary to hug my mom but mostly I avoided that because I was worried she’d make me sit through the very long sermon and service, where I’d be obliged to pray (which I never liked). Little did I know that my mom never expected me to sit through the 2-3 hour long service. Her goal was for me to love being Jewish and to have positive associations with our synagogue. I always wanted to go because it was fun and there were so many kids to play with. After Kiddush my parents’ friends made their way over to our pool for the afternoon. I remember generous servings of watermelon, grapes and cheese Danish and lots of cups of coffee before we got dressed again to go back to the synagogue for Havdalah services and the conclusion of Shabbat. The Matriarch in Miami
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 30x40, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1965 To my mind no conversation about Jewish identity can take place without acknowledging the power of the Jewish mother in shaping who we are as people and as Jews. The woman in this painting is not my mother. This is Shirley. I love this image of her, soaking up the sun. I can taste the soft rye bread with seeds on the plate next to her. A ‘nirvana day’ for just about anyone. Shirley passed away in December 2018. The thing that struck me most at her funeral was the sheer force of her will. Shirley’s children described her as a woman who existed to raise a close-knit family that fully embraced both the American dream and their Judaism. Women like Shirley got involved in community work, hosting Hadassah meetings, giving time and funds to Federation and building Temple sisterhoods. Shirley, like so many ‘matriarchs’ made important decisions like joining synagogues, sending kids to Jewish camp and Hebrew school, celebrating memorable Passover seders and inviting children and their mates to weekly Shabbat dinner tables. Shirley encouraged her children to achieve in extra-curricular activities, get part-time jobs and attend the best colleges to become all they could be. She kept her family together by arranging annual cruises and Fourth of July BBQ’s. Shirley’s price was definitely ‘far above rubies’. I can say the same about my own mother and mother-in-law who continue to play this role in my family. Who were the matriarchs in yours? Shoftim (Judges)
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 22x28, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 2015 My daughter was the first girl in the history of my family to read Torah at her Bat Mitzvah. When my sisters came of age in the mid 1970’s, girls definitely did not celebrate Bat Mitzvahs at our Conservative congregation. When it was my turn in the early 1980’s, the synagogue had adopted a more egalitarian approach to this milestone. My mother offered me the chance to have a Bat Mitzvah but I was too shy to read Torah in front of everybody and turned down the opportunity. She didn’t fight me. When my daughter came of age in 2015, I was filled with pride. She prepared for her Torah reading (Shoftim) with discipline and a measure of seriousness I did not know she possessed. I have ultra-Orthodox relatives who declined to attend this service because traditional Judaism has never recognized women in this capacity. I wasn’t angry that they didn’t come to this event. I actually understand the reasons why. When you alter something after centuries of practicing it a certain way there’s bound to be a backlash from the traditionalists who want to preserve the culture and rituals in their original form. There are lasting implications when you change the tradition. My daughter understands this tension too. We did not take offense. But my daughter is more knowledgeable in Judaism than I will ever be and I know she has the tools to continue shaping the American Jewish story. I wonder what it will look like when she is my age. Greeners, Galers & Fairfield Porter
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 20x20, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1950 I am most enamored with the paintings of Fairfield Porter. He was a Kennedy-era American artist who painted my fantasy of ‘the good life’ – genteel people of a certain lineage enjoying summer moments at his family’s historic beach house in Maine. Awash in color, Porter captured images of generations reading together on the screened porch; friends gathered in conversation on sun-washed Adirondack chairs; morning tennis matches in preppy whites. As much as I idealize this world I know that ‘my people’ did not come from that ‘stock’ or live like that. My mother-in-law once explained to me the ‘Jewish social hierarchy’ as she experienced it. There were ‘greeners’ and ‘galers’. She was a greener. I came from greeners. Galer is Yiddish for yellow and greener...well that’s obvious. These terms are used as immigration and lineage metaphors. She explained that a ‘galer’ is like a yellow vegetable that has had time to ripen on the vine while a ‘greener’, like a green vegetable, is new on the vine. If you’re a greener it means you are an immigrant from the old country and you have an accent. A galer is someone whose ancestors have been living in the new world for generations. Galers have ripened on the vine of America for a long time. Stereotypically, galers had time to build their fortunes in this country, become ‘genteel’ and take their place as part of the leisure class – they might sail or have beach homes; they play tennis. I love this image of my husband’s grandparents. There they are, two ‘greeners’, as if planted into a Fairfield Porter painting but just on the other side of the fence. It was a moment captured only a few short years after escaping the ravages of war. I love that they figured out how to insert themselves, if not in, then beside the ‘leisure class’ of the galers. They cast off their heavy clothes and the baggage of the past and had their day in the sun. Modern Shabbat
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 20x24, painted 2016 Original photograph taken - 2016 Shabbat dinner on Friday nights is one of the few Jewish rituals that I have consistently kept with my family for as long as I can remember. Just like my mother and grandmothers before me, I light candles, we join together around the dining room table to recite the Sabbath blessings and settle in for a quiet evening at home. When my kids were little it was very easy to mark Friday nights as ‘off limits’ and guard Shabbat dinner as sacred family time. But there are so many competing demands today. My daughters often have dance rehearsals on Friday nights. I compromise by lighting my candles at sundown in full view of my children so they experience the light and beauty of how Jews mark and sanctify time. The girls then bundle up to go to the studio to practice ballet for their company’s performance of the Nutcracker and return to a home that smells like challah and chicken soup and a traditional Shabbat meal. It’s not exactly how I want things to be but it works for us. The “Jew-Fro”
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 14 x18, painted 2019 Original photograph taken – 1975 Boys like the ones pictured here rumbled onto our driveway in their Camaros and Firebirds to take my four sisters to the movies, sweet sixteens, USY events and proms on a regular basis. My poor father – one can only imagine how protective he must have felt! There’s an old Yiddish saying: ‘finif techte ist nischte gilechte’ which means “five daughters is no laughing matter”. There’s a lot of wisdom in Yiddish. Treyf
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 20x20, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1960 I’ll never forget the first time I tried ‘treyf’ (Yiddish for unkosher food). I was in high school and my best friend decided that for my 17th birthday it was ‘enough of that kosher nonsense’ and time to try Chinese food. So off we went to Champion House Szechuan Restaurant. I devoured it. I had no idea food could taste so good. That was the day I was done with kashrut (keeping the Jewish dietary laws). Frankly, I completely understand why so many Jews abandoned it – the laws are stringent and strange, the food is expensive and fine dining options barely exist in most communities in North America. When I first started painting this lady (a friend’s cousin circa 1960) I thought it was hilarious but as I ‘spent time with her’ I started to feel upset. I reminded myself that in my early 40s I felt inklings of regret about my teenaged decision. I was raising children of my own, trying to instill Jewish values in them. I missed the opportunity to show them how to observe kashrut in a meaningful way (beyond the idiosyncratic kosher ‘style’ that we currently keep with milk, meat and treyf dishes). My kids were too old to buy in and I still really like Chinese food. For centuries Jews were defined (and held together as a community) by the observance of the Sabbath and keeping the dietary laws. I really respect my mom for the hard work and discipline it required to make sure that we were conscious of our Judaism and Jewish identity literally every time we took a bite of food. I never understood the full impact of undoing all her efforts until now. When Mira Visited the Sukkah
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on Canvas, 16x20, painted 2019 Original photograph taken - 1972 Sukkot (The Festival of Booths) was my favorite Jewish holiday as a young child and it remains so today. My friends and their families have grown to count on our annual Sukkah Party where we curl up under blankets, drink wine, eat soup and enjoy the crisp fall air in my back yard sukkah. I connect to my late father every year when I build it because that was ‘our thing’. It’s a gorgeous holiday. But oh did I hate it during that short miserable time called middle school! Our house was perched high up on a hill overlooking the ravine where all the neighborhood kids crossed to get to St. Andrew’s Junior High School. Our rickety sukkah was on display for all to see and I thought it was so embarrassing. We lived in a leafy suburb of Toronto with a sizeable Jewish population but a sukkah was “too Jewish” for my too cool teenaged self. It was more than enough that I had to keep kosher and miss sleepovers because of Hebrew school or Friday night dinners. Couldn’t we be ‘normal Jewish’? As I matured I came back to the conclusion that it was a fun holiday and I knew I met the right guy for me when my now husband was so excited to have dinner in our family sukkah early in our courtship. When Parkinson’s disease took over my father’s health we sadly had to stop building it. I am so glad that I have priceless photos of my children as babies sitting on my lap in the expanded and elaborate sukkah that my dad built. Bubba Sara at Casino Rama
By J. Kott-Wolle Oil on canvas, 16x20, painted 2018 Original photograph taken - 2010 I never really felt close to my grandparents but I loved them and I knew they loved me. They died when I was quite young and they only spoke Yiddish so it was tough to communicate and establish a real relationship with them beyond the adoring smiles. When I met my husband it was completely strange to me to have that generation alive and well and part of our lives. Lucky for me he had two wonderful grandmothers. Being with them was almost like time-traveling to the shtetls of old and yet both were thoroughly modern women, each with a playful sense of humor. Bubba Sara died in 2017. She lived to be 102. Bubba LOVED the casinos. When she turned 90 we (her grandchildren) took her to Las Vegas because she wanted, as she put it, “to go there one last time before moving to my apartment in the sky”. Even near the end of her life, when she slept a lot, she’d perk up if someone offered to take her to the slot machines. I miss her every day. |