Morning Shadows

Early morning, bright light, mini-blinds, nice vase, spiky plant.

A good recipe for a nice image. Worth getting up off the living room sofa and retrieving my camera for.

I Hearby Declare...

In early January 1957, a little before my 7th birthday, Mom took me downtown to apply for my citizenship. I remember a very patient gentleman carefully explaining to me the concept of citizenship and the obligations attached to it, to which I solemnly agreed.

I had to sign several small photos along the edges. Mom said, "Now Stevie, write neatly, because President Eisenhower is going to see this."

Would my Mom fib to me? No way, so I took it seriously and signed as carefully as my not-quite-seven-year-old motor skills allowed. What she said made sense to me, anyway. I pictured our grandfatherly President going through papers on his desk, coming to my application, smiling, and saying, "of course, Stevie should be a citizen!"

So on that long-ago January day, I took the following oath, linking me to a long line of those who came before me, those who have come since, and those still unborn who will one day adopt our country as their own:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God

Il Gabinetto con le Ombre

It sounds better than "Toilet with Shadows."

Ramble Arch

The Obligatory Group Photo of our gang from Shutterbug Excursions at our photo meetup in Central Park last weekend.

As I led them through the Ramble, I found Ramble Arch, the narrowest arch in the Park and a great favorite of mine. I knew I had to get a photo of the group in the archway.

Puttin' On The Ritz...

The inscription for the elegantly-dressed gentleman pictured here reads

Our beloved father

An honest and righteous man

Reb Moshe Yitzhak

son of Yehezkiel

At the very bottom of the image is inscribed the family name, Black (here phonetically spelled as "Bleck.")

In this cemetery in Woburn, I saw several tombstones from the 1920's and '30s with these little portraits of the deceased. This is something I've never seen in the Baltimore area, except in recent years among Jews who immigrated from the former Soviet Union since the 1970s.

Po Nikbara...

Po nikbara Yehudit bat Reb Mordechai...

Here is buried Yehudit (Judith) the daughter of Reb Mordechai...

Among Ashkenazi Jews, until recently, the first inscription near the top of a tombstone has been פנ, letters with the sounds of "P" and "N." These are the initial letters for the phrase פה נקבר (PO nik-BAHR*), meaning "here is buried."

I became interested in Hebrew tombstones when researching the history of my Dad's family. He came from a small town, Hoof, outside Kassel in Germany. Several years ago, an resident of Hoof generously sent me about 80 photographs of tombstones taken in the Hoof-Breitenbach cemetery that served the Jewish communities of the two neighboring towns.

Those old-style tombstones, dating from the early 1800's until just before WWII, were generously inscribed in Hebrew (many also had German) in a style rarely used by postwar Jews in America. But this past weekend, I stumbled across several old Jewish cemeteries in Woburn, MA, each containing a wealth of the older-style tombstones.

Here's an excellent guide to decoding a Hebrew tombstone inscription.

* note: Hebrew verbs indicate the gender of the subject or object. While nikbar is masculine, nik-bah-RAH(נקברה), as in the case of this stone, is femine.

Judkins Pond, Winchester MA

We were in the Boston area to visit our daughter Leah this past weekend. The weather was spectacular, and we were treated to an early (for us) display of fall colors.

I got up early Sunday morning to get some good light, and was rewarded with this scene in Winchester, the town next to where our motel was.