When you’re a professional weaver and your new relationship starts getting serious, what do you do to show your partner how you feel? Offer to teach them how to weave, of course! There’s nothing more romantic than spending your evenings doing what you do all day at work. A couple years ago I made just such an offer to my new lover, and instead of making dish towels, as I’ve done with other students, we decided that Ira should weave himself a prayer shawl. I had recently learned to tie tzitzit from a fellow weaver, and I was excited to try it out.
What we discovered was that not only was a tallit a fantastic project for a beginning weaver, it was also a relatively blank canvas for artistic expression. Halakhically, we are only told that it must have four corners to hold tzitzit. Traditionally, we find white backgrounds with stripes at either end, but nothing says a tallit must look that way. So really, the possibilities are endless!
For a long time the idea of applying my own artistic vision to the blank canvas of the tallit percolated in the back of my mind. Finally, after months of urging from Ira, I started Black Cat Judaica and we’ve been going strong ever since!
Ethics
We support working class Jews. We at Black Cat Judaica are dedicated to crafting Jewish products that are accessible to Jews of all situations and backgrounds. The harmful, antisemitic stereotype of Jewish wealth is internalized in many Jewish circles. This means that working class and poor Jews are often deprived of “quintessential” Jewish experiences and opportunities due to financial barriers. We hope to help remove those barriers around ritual objects by offering a pay-what-you can pricing system.
We do not support the Apartheid state in Israel/Palestine. Unfortunately, Israel has a monopoly on affordable Judaica at this time. Jews should not have to choose between Judaica that we can afford and Judaica that supports the oppression and displacement of the Palestinian people. We reject the notion that diaspora Judaism is a less legitimate form of Judaism, and hope that our products will help cultivate a vibrant Jewish world beyond Israel. We would rather fight for Jewish safety and liberation everywhere than accept Jewish safety in one place, and secure it with violence against those who already live there. With that said, we recognize that the United States, where we are based, is also a colonial power, where issues of land sovereignty and racially-based violence create profound disparities in quality of life. We are committed to combating these disparities at home, as well as those overseas.
Meet us
Nelly
Nelly has been a professional weaver for 8 years, and learned to weave before she started grade school. She apprenticed under master weaver Kate Smith at the Marshfield School of Weaving before working for Eaton Hill Textile Works. She started Black Cat Judaica in 2019, with a mission to sell high quality, handmade Judaica on a sliding scale.
Ira
Ira is an amateur weaver and dyer. He attended yeshiva in New York City for 13 years, so he is Black Cat Judaica’s resident halakha interpreter and Hebrew translator.
Gil
Black Cat Judaica is named after our beloved cat Gil Z”L.