Pro­duc­ing con­tent on the Web since 1995.

some say­ings of ר‘משבצונה“ל

For many years I have worked hard, and strug­gled with mas­ter­ing virtuous. Now, in addi­tion, I’m work­ing on becom­ing more virtual.
This is an expres­sion of that effort.
* * * * * * *

השיבנו ה‘ אליך ונשובה חדש ימינו
כעוד לא היו
* * * * * * *
ומביא גאלה…
לצאצאיהם

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All pho­tographs are by Mark Hurvitz unless they are obvi­ously not.

The pho­tos in the ban­ner at the top (only a shal­low sliver of a much larger photo) are either from our home or our trav­els and are offered for their beauty alone (though a brain-teaser for me: “Where was that?”).

st. paintings

At least three col­ors of painted mes­sages on the pave­ment. By the time there are three col­ors that fit within the photo, none can have any “mean­ing” what remains is the pattern.

3 pavements

Three pave­ments poured next to each other (con­tigu­ous), but not at a prop­erty line.

Judaic Lapel Buttons

I col­lect (Amer­i­can) Judaic lapel buttons.

I have approx­i­mately 3000 unique items. Each one rep­re­sents a dif­fer­ent moment in the Amer­i­can Jew­ish life and offers a way to learn about the Jew­ish experience.

polit­i­cal but­tons as history

instant his­tory

Jews have pro­duced and dis­trib­uted lapel but­tons (or pins) since the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tury. Some of these were pro­duced to com­mem­o­rate cel­e­bra­tions, oth­ers to make a point at demon­stra­tions. Some were pro­duced for com­mer­cial gain, and oth­ers for a polit­i­cal cam­paign. Their pur­poses are legion and diverse. Some are humor­ous, some seri­ous. Each one tells of a moment in the recent Jew­ish experience.

In the Spring of 1979, Present Tense mag­a­zine (pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Con­gress until the early 1990s) printed a brief descrip­tion of my col­lec­tion [Vol 6 #3 pp. 30–31, it was actu­ally the cover story]. At the time, the col­lec­tion num­bered only a few hun­dred items.

your lapel buttons

Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jacket you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any lay­ing around that you do not feel emo­tion­ally attached to, please let me know. I am pre­serv­ing these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point they will all go to an appro­pri­ate museum.

things are not always as they seem

Some­times I find a but­ton that looks like it should belong in my col­lec­tion. To be on the “safe side” I’ll buy it… only to learn later that…

Image on century-old lapel but­ton is priest, not rabbi

http://images.townnews.com/catholicmessenger.org/content/articles/2009/07/29/diocesan_news/doc4a707be80c7bc454048539.jpg

Rt. Rev. Anton Nier­mann, who served at St. Joseph Parish in Dav­en­port, appears on a 1909 lapel but­ton that Rabbi Mark Hurvitz of New York bought.

other but­tons shared

images of lapel but­tons found around the Web

This page was orig­i­nally Posted 26 March, 2009 (Rosh Ḥosdesh Nisan, 5769)