The Craft of the Tallit
A hundred Temple Israel students learn how to make their own prayer shawls.

Story by Shelli Dorfman
Photos by Krista Husa

Most of the children in the Temple Israel social hall last week were making a prayer shawl for themselves, but Josh Burda had another idea. Since he is already bar mitzvah, he wanted his tallit to go to his mother, Elissa, a member of the Temple Israel religious school staff, "to wear at my brother Mike's bar mitzvah in May 2000."

That Josh was looking ahead and thinking about his whole family was just what Temple Israel's organizers of the unusual program in tallit-making had in mind. They said that having children create their own shawls will strengthen their understanding of religion as they approach their bar or bat mitzvah and make them appreciate the scope for individual creativity within the broad religious tradition.

Nearly 100 Temple Israel Tyner Religious School sixth graders are creating their own personalized, ready-to-be-worn, heirlooms. On Nov. 12, the group received instruction from Israeli artist and project originator Yorron Hackmon.The joint parent-teacher-student undertaking is a part of the temple's "So your child is going to become a bar or bat mitzvah" series. Temple Director of Education Fran Pearlman met Hackmon at the Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education, and invited him to conduct the workshop. Pearlman said the bar/bat mitzvah age is an anxious time, with so many unknowns for the children. The project mkakes the experience "tangible and meaningful," she said.

Hackmon, a Judaic artist from Rochester, N.Y., began developing patterns for talleisim and matzah, challah and siddur covers four years ago. They include menorahs, letters, shapes, Jewish stars, and Torahs, re-created from Jewish historical works, and copied from Italian Torah covers, old Jewish symbols found in cemeteries and by commissioned American Jewish artists. Each tallit is stitched with pockets to accommodate the wool, Israeli-made tzizit (fringes). Hackmon's instructions include the tying of one of the four tzizit. The other three he asks students to create with their grandparents, so that the tallit is not only something that they know can one day be passed down to their children, but that it is already a legacy that has, in part, been passed down to them.

"It doesn't matter which of Yorron's patterns the students use," Pearlman said, "because whatever they do, each tallit will be an original." While student Brett Manchel used fabric markers to trace the letters of the blessing for wearing the tallit, Mike Burda filled in a dove-and-olive pattern with red and green fabric markers and Temple Israel's Rabbi Loss answered the all-important question, "Rabbi, which side is the top?" Jenna Oates admitted, "Me and my mom are not crafty people, but this was easy and fun." Her mom, Deb Wexler, agreed. "There's no wrong in the pattern - you just go with it."

Others, like Brooke Vallone think they are making their own tallit, but her mother Hilary told her that if she gets one for her bat mitzvah, "I'm keeping this one." The project will be continued throughout the school year. Teachers will make certain a shawl will be completed by the time each child is ready to stand on the bimah, recite the blessing, and place their tallit, with its own personal meaning, on their shoulders.