Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Scholar in Residence fellowship -- call for applications

Candlesticks hands in blessing mark women's gravestones in Gura Humorului, Romania. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

by Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University  has issued its call for applications for the summer or fall 2014 Scholar in Residence program.

It's a wonderful opportunity -- I was the Scholar in Residence at the HBI in early 2011, when I worked on my Candlesticks on Stone project about the visual representation of women in Jewish tombstone art.

In addition to the creation of the project web site, I present a paper about my project, which has been posted online as part of the Donna Sudarsky Memorial Working Paper Series.

You can view my paper HERE -- unfortunately it does not include the pictures, but you can see those on the Candlesticks on Stone web site.


Here are the details about the Residency and call for applications. 

The HBI Scholar-in-Residence programs provide scholars, artists, writers and communal professionals the opportunity to be in residence at Brandeis University while working on significant projects in the field of Jewish women’s and gender studies. 

Scholars-in-Residence receive a monthly stipend and office space at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center. Applicants living outside the U.S. and those whose work has an international dimension are especially encouraged to apply. 

Helen Gartner Hammer Scholars-in-Residence Program – Summer or Fall 2014 

Scholars are invited to apply for residency at the HBI to carry out significant research and artistic projects in the field of Jewish women’s and gender studies. Papers written while at the HBI are included in the Donna Sudarsky Memorial Working Paper Series. 

Residencies range from one month to the full academic semester. Scholars may begin the residency in August but should note that not all members of the Brandeis community will be available until the start of the academic year in September. 

Application deadline: January 30, 2014 

A decision will be announced by April 17, 2014 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEE 

http://www.brandeis.edu/hbi/residencies/scholar.html

Candlesticks on Stone -- HBI announcement of my fellowship

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Here's the link to the page on the web site of the Hadassah Brandeis Institute announcing my fellowship as scholar in residence -- click HERE

While at the HBI, Ruth will be working on (Candle)sticks on Stone: Representing the Woman in Jewish Tombstone Art (begun in 2009 with an HBI research grant), which centers on a photographic documentation of the often elaborate tombstones of women in the historic Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, mainly in and around the Bucovina region of northern Romania -- including the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, where some of her ancestors are buried. Focusing on the remarkably varied sculptural representation of candlesticks on these tombs, the project fuses visual documentation and photographic art with research, reportage, reflection and memoir. It encompasses issues of gender, identity and tradition and explores how tradition is (or is not) transmitted. The project is centered on a public web site and blog, but will also result in more traditionally published works.

The Candlesticks web site is http://candlesticksonstone.wordpress.com

Eastern Europe -- (Candlesticks) on Stone

My great-great grandmother's tombstone (center) in Radauti. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I arrived at Brandeis University, near Boston, this week to take up a Scholar in Residence fellowship at the Hadassah Brandeis Insitute. For almost the next two months, I will be working on my (Candle)sticks on Stone project about the representation of women in Jewish tombstone art.

It is a multi-faceted project based on the photographic work I have carried out in the Jewish cemeteries of northern Romania, Ukraine, Poland and elsewhere, where the decorative carving on Jewish tombstones is often highly elaborate and scuptural.

I have long been fascinated by the iconography and purely decorative carving on the tombs -- my Candlesticks project focuses on the artistry and symbolism used on women's tombstones. Candlesticks often mark the graves of women, as lighting the Sabbath candles is the only one of the "three women's commandments" that can easily be represented in physical artistic form (the others have to do with observing the laws of Niddah separating men from women during their menstrual periods, and that of Challah, or burning a piece of dough when making bread.)

In addition to organizing and adding more photos to the web site, I will also be researching tombstones and symbolism -- and I will also be investigating the transmission of tradition. The main cemetery I have documented, in Radauti, Romania, is where at least two of my female ancestors are buried, each a pious woman who observed traditions and whose gravestone bears the carving of candlesticks. But, in my generation,  few if any of the descendants of these women regularly light the candles.

(Candle)sticks on Stone -- Introducing My New Web Site

As I reported earlier, I have been awarded the first Michael Hammer Tribute Research Grant by the Hadassah Brandeis Institute for a project called “(Candle)sticks on Stone: Representing the Woman in Jewish Tombstone Art”.

Each year the HBI awards 20 to 30 grants to support academic and artistic projects about Jews and gender. My project was selected by the HBI board as "an exceptional research award" to be dedicated to the memory of Michael Hammer, the husband of one of the board members, who died last year.

My project centers around the richly decorated tombstones of women in the Jewish cemetery in Radauti, Romania, where my own great-grandmother, Ettel Gruber, is buried. Many of these stones bear sometimes very elaborate depictions of candlesticks, and of women's hands blessing the flames.

As part of the project, I have set up a combined web site/blog on which I will post photo galleries and text related to my subject and also post blog entries chronicling my reflections and insights as I progress. There is also room for comment from visitors.

Please visit the site at candlesticksonstone.wordpress.com.

The site is in a continuing state of evolution and development -- so I hope you'll keep coming back!