|
|
|
Jewish World Review April 27, 1999 / 12 Iyar, 5759
JUDAISM ENCOMPASSES SUCH A KALEIDOSCOPE of cultures and customs that even an
active, observant Jew can go through life and suddenly be confronted by a totally
new facet of our diverse culture. It happened to me some years ago in Nice, France,
where I had gone on business. I was passing the evening hours in my hotel watching
French TV when a program on Jewish customs appeared.
The custom of preparing a wimple -- the word means "cloth" or "veil" in old German
-- began about 400 years ago in Germany and spread from there to Alsace,
Switzerland, France and the Low Countries. As German Jews emigrated to other
lands, especially America, they brought the custom with them but it has remained
confined to a limited section of Ashkenazic Jewry.
INDIGENOUS JEWISH FOLK ART
Many have families had wimples prepared by local artists with themes depicting the
family history, occupation and hopes for their new-born son. Some superb examples
of artistic wimples are in the collection of the Jewish Museum in New York and the
Israel Museum. These usually include colorful Bar Mitzvah and wedding scenes in
early anticipation of these happy future events.
The father of the child would be called to the Torah where he presented the wimple
to the congregation. It was then used in the gelilah, or binding ceremony,
after the Torah reading and remained on the Torah until the following week. The
wimple was then placed in the synagogue's collection and brought out again to be
used to bind the Torah when the boy became a Bar Mitzvah.
BOUND WITH HIS WIMPLE
The preparation and presentation of a wimple has not died out. There are still a few
families who practice this vanishing folk art. It is a beautiful, meaningful
minhag (custom) which, in this age of hands-on Judaism, and our emphasis
on decorative arts, is worthy of widespread rebirth and
The Wimple: A Jewish
folk art worth reviving
By Herb Geduld
The wimple is an ornate, embroidered or painted cloth used to bind up a Torah
scroll after it has been read. It is made from swaddling cloth used to bind a baby at
his circumcision. Thus, almost from the moment of birth, a direct link is established
between the child and the Torah.
After the circumcision, the swaddling cloth is cleaned and the boy's mother
embroiders or paints the cloth with the child's name, birth date, blessings and
appropriate Biblical phrases.
The custom of presenting the wimple to the synagogue varied from community to
community. In some German congregations the completed wimple was brought to
the synagogue as soon as the mother, according to Jewish law, was allowed to enter
the synagogue after childbirth. In others, it was brought as late as the third birthday
of the child.
One of the poignant stories associated with the wimple occurred a few years ago at
the dedication of the exquisite new synagogue at the Haifa Technion. At the opening
ceremonies, the synagogue was presented with a number of Torah scrolls that had
been rescued from the Holocaust. 
One of the Technion professors, a refugee from
Nazi Germany, was overcome with emotion when, upon being called up to the
Torah, he found the scroll being read was bound with his wimple, given
decades previously to his now destroyed childhood synagogue in Frankfort.
Jewish historian, cultural maven, and JWR contributor Herb Geduld lives in Cleveland.
