LimmudFest Nola 2023

Quilts are often held up as a way women who lacked education or leisure time stitched stories to pass along to the next generation. While some scholars have argued that the paucity of quilts among Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 1880-1920s indicates Jews didn’t quilt, quilts were important to Jewish American life in the 1840s-1880s. Throughout this era, American Jewish women used the album and crazy quilts to repair relationships torn by war, travel, and distance. Moreover, the rise of Jewish sewing circles meant sewing was often a community-building rite. In this hands-on workshop we will look at how one particular Jewish album quilt from the 1850s can help us understand the lives and aesthetic experiences of early Jewish women who didn’t leave written records.