Yizkor Holocaust Memorial Tapestry

Generations

Yehudit Shadur, Tamar Shadur

66×54 in

Weft: wool, rayon, metallic threads; Warp: cotton

The Hebrew word Yizkor means Remembrance. Jews recite the yizkor prayer in commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. The seven flames of the Menorah, the ancient emblem of Israel, converge into the Crown of Torah. Two heraldic Lions of Judah stand on columns suggestive of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, the focus of Jewish worship and nationhood. The gazelle, Tzvi Israel, encompassed by grapevines with their deep running roots, is symbolic of the Jewish people.
These emblematic themes in Jewish ritual and folk art evoke the spirit of East-European Jewry and synagogues destroyed in the Holocaust. The few remaining black and white photos of the paintings on walls and ceilings of 18th Century wooden synagogues inspired Yehudit Shadur to create the design and cartoon for this tapestry.
As the weaver, I was committed to interpret my mother’s painted design giving it a life of its own, a vibrant presence in tapestry, to tell the memorial story. My own weaver’s marks, my personal memorials, are woven in the border. The Hebrew letters spelling my late father’s name Yosseff (Joseph) and my late brother’s name Raphael are embedded vertically along the left side. A discerning eye will discover the blue letters “WTC” in the center of the upper border. I wove these in while listening to the ongoing radio reports following the tragedy of 9/11 to memorialize the gravity that the destruction of the World Trade Center represented. – TS