About Me, My Other Knitting, & My Reading Shelf
About Me
Name: Leslie
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Definition: Mother, wife, sister, friend, neighbor, child advocate, fiber artist, musician, perpetual student, reader, thinker, knitter, maker, dancer. Raised in the classical Reform Jewish tradition, trained in philosophy, law and music, committed to communitarian values and action.
Other Interests: optimism, green energy, opera, camping, quilting, viola da gamba, traditional fiddling, early music, history of books and illumination, iconography, cartography.
Favorite Books: Genesis (Torah), I and Thou (Martin Buber), Philebus (Plato), On Friendship (Aristotle), The Poverty of Historicism (Karl Popper), The Spirit of Community (Amitai Etzione), A History of God (Karen Armstrong), Blood Oranges (John Hawkes), The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula le Guin), A Canticle for Liebowitz (Walter M. Miller, Jr.), The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy), My Friend the Monster (Clyde Bulla), The Hundred Dresses (Eleanor Estes)
Apologies and Disclaimers
This site is written and maintained in my pursuit of study and reflection. If I have infringed copyrights in the course of my written reflections, it is without malice without malice or intention to defraud or cause damage to anyone.
Many of the images share here my own, and many are not. I have attempted to link to the original sources for all images not my own. If there isn’t, or the links do not work, it is the result of an oversight or circumstances beyond my control. I have also attempted to provide references for all quotations.
Anyone objecting to the manner in which I have used their work is invited to contact me immediately (tikkunknits(at)yahoo(dot)com) so that I can make appropriate changes consistent with fair use of copyright
I do not have any academic or professional training in religious studies, nor any current affiliation with an institute of higher learning. So I cannot, and do not, claim that the information on this site meet scholarly criteria. Rather, the site is the product of my ongoing study, carefully using materials available to all of us on the net and from other resources. I made every effort to use information responsibly, and do not assume responsibility for others’ information or off-site links (I just can’t control others’ content or availability)
I’d like to express my gratitude to all those who have encouraged me with their kind words, who gently corrected me when I erred, and who generously gave me permission to use their images and/or material on this site.
My Other Knitting:
If you are interested in seeing what I knit when I take off my tikkunknittivist cap, try here (http://tikkunknitter.wordpress.com) or my Flickr photo collections.
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Reading Shelf
In progress
Martin Buber, On Judaism
Chaim Gans, A Just Zionism
Neve Gordon, Israel’s Occupation
Next up
Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence
Paula Frederiksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity
Finished
Tom Segev, The Seventh Million (started September)
Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (started May, 2007, still on the bedside table)
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (started and completed in August, 2007)
Sometime soon
John Rawls, Political Liberalism
You certainly are growing…..very impressive.
I can imagine the work you are putting into
this project!!!!
Hi Leslie,
I’ve had your site on my RSS feed for a good while. I just had a reader contact me to ask me about how she could make nice Jewish holiday gifts to send to her grandchildren, and I sent her to this site. I was just thinking that it would be nifty to get you to write about your Jewish holiday patterns for our site and about this project. Please email me to let me know if this interests you.
Richard Jihad Silverstein is a jew hater!
He always attacks Israel and supports Hamas.
It is easy living in the US. But what if you live in Sderot?
Have you ever read the Hamas charter?
Dear Leslie
I found you while looking for a kippah pattearn. Your knitted Judaic arts are so creative. When ready, I would love to do the 10 plagues. My grandchildren would love them.
I live in Lexington, MA, and belong to Temple Emunah, a conservative shul. I am finally ready to make a tallit for myself.
Is there a group on Ravelry that is creating knitted and crochet Judaic arts? If you have any comments please email me at pgherda(at)rcn(dot)com. On ravelry I am Momaphyllis
Phyllis
Thanks for your kind words about my knitted Judaica, Phyllis. I’ll be in touch with you on Ravelry (look for me there as Tikkunknitter).
Leslie
Thanks for your kind words, Phyllis. I expect it will be a while before patterns for the 10 plagues are available. But the Seder plate patterns are available in my Ravelry shop and my Etsy shop: Tikkunknits
I started a Seder group on Ravelry a few years ago – it’s limping along with some new recruits.
Leslie – did you know about this? I’ve copy and pasted it from the announcement I just got.
AJWS is pleased to announce that we are accepting applications for the Dvar
Tzedek Lisa Goldberg Memorial Writers’ Fellowship for 5770 / 2009-2010. AJWS
Dvar Tzedek Fellows receive a modest stipend and write weekly Torah
commentaries relating to the Jewish imperative for social justice. The Dvar
Tzedek currently reaches over 4,000 people a week over e-mail.
To see examples of the work of this year’s Dvar Tzedek commentaries, and to
download the application for the fellowship, please visit
http://www.ajws.org/parshah.
We invite you to apply for the fellowship and to circulate information about
the fellowship to anyone you think would be interested. For more
information, please contact Lisa Exler at lexler@ajws.org.
Hello Leslie, I found photos of your knitted Judaica in Flickr and I thought they were just brilliant. That led me to your blog, also very interesting. I work in a Jewish cultural institution and we would be interested in buying the Seder Plate items to include them in an exhibition. I see you sell the knitting patterns online, but are the items available already knitted, or could they be? Thank you and congratulations for your creativity!
Thanks for your interest in my work. Feel free to contact me about purchasing the Knitted Seder for exhibition.
hi leslie,
i came across this article today and thought of you. perhaps you’ve seen it already? i found the comments especially interesting.
Deir Abu Meshal, West Bank – Palestinian Women Knit Jewish ‘Yarmulkes’
http://www.vosizneias.com/37125/2009/08/23/deir-abu-meshal-west-bank-palestinian-women-knit-jewish-yarmulkas/
hope you’re well out there…
b’shalom,
julie
Hi,
I have run across your work too many times not to think that this must be beshert. I am a professional Jewish educator and this spring we are creating a children’s museum-like environment on the theme of preparing for Passover. I’m currently working on putting together adult “Nights at the Museum” and I think people would really really enjoy seeing and learning to make some of your clever Passover-related items. We’re just over the bridge in Southern New Jersey, would you consider doing a workshop here?
I will be honest with you though, although I’m exactly where you are politically, most of our folks are pretty conservative. I’m just sharing so you won’t feel uncomfortable.
Thanks for even considering this… I can be reached by email phoffnung@jfedsnj.org or by phone 856-673-2508.
P
I love your felted wool etrog, I am copying with something much quicker — yellow fleece. Thanks for the inspiration!