Torah Stitch by Stitch Comes Home

By Lili Shain

Over 13 years ago, I was at a Shavuot celebration at Holy Blossom where I picked up a registration form for the Torah Stitch by Stitch project; some of you may even remember that event.  When I understood the scope of the project—to cross-stitch the entire Torah, letter by letter—it seemed a quixotic undertaking. When it took me 20 minutes to stitch a single aleph, “quixotic” began to feel like an understatement. On more than one occasion, Temma herself used to describe the idea as inspired lunacy, and there were many times over the following 10 years when “lunacy” seemed the more accurate description.

Temma Gentles z’’l, a lifelong member of HBT and its artist-in-residence at the time, had conceived the idea in Israel just a few months earlier. When she launched the project at that Shavuot event, she could scarcely have imagined that it would eventually bring together some 1,500 diverse participants from 27 countries (including over 30 stitchers from Holy Blossom itself), inspire an award-winning documentary short, and lead to a spectacular exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada in 2019.

Remarkably, when that exhibition opened in 2019, we were only halfway there. Three months after it closed, Covid swept across the world, and suddenly our groups could no longer meet to assemble the remaining work. We finally completed the stitched Torah in January 2023, 10 years after the idea first took form. Comprising more than 1,700 individual panels, stitched together into 78 large segments, it stands 7 feet high and stretches over 300 linear feet—the length of a football field!

Soon after, Temma and her husband Paul came to Israel, where we met for dinner and began to explore how and where we might show the entire work. But we also considered a different question: how could we share this incredible story without the enormous space and expense a full exhibition would require?

Sparked by the insights of a Jerusalem-based fine art printer, the idea of using advanced reproduction technology to create smaller, more accessible exhibits began to take shape. The ability to create faithful canvas prints of our large segments was a game changer.  Once again, Israel shifted the conversation.

Before we could get very far with either objective, Temma passed away unexpectedly—a devastating loss to the project and, far more importantly, to her family and many friends. Our plans ground to a halt. And then, just as we were beginning to find our way forward, October 7 changed everything. Israel was at war, and Jewish communities throughout the diaspora had far more immediate concerns than an inspiring stitched Torah, no matter how beautiful.

So we turned our attention to what we could do: digitizing the entire work and laying the groundwork for smaller travelling exhibitions.

After two more challenging years, we were finally able to launch this new concept—in Israel! It was on display for two months in Tel Aviv, followed by a four-month run at Kehillat Yedidya in Jerusalem. I was curious to see how Israeli visitors would take to this rendering of the Torah, and their heartwarming response of amazement and enthusiasm did not disappoint. Another great pleasure was meeting many of our 34 Israeli stitchers, some of whom knew Temma personally, and most of whom were seeing the assembled work for the first time.

Now the Torah Stitch by Stitch story is coming home to Holy Blossom Temple.  It will be on display downstairs in the Philip Smith gallery from September 11^th to November 15^th; an opening reception will take place on October 4^th at 10:00.  Please come and join us in celebrating Temma’s legacy and welcoming home the extraordinary project that got its start right here. Click here to learn more & join us!

Simultaneous to Torah Stitch by Stitch, you can catch Elaine Hoffman’s exhibit: “That’s How the Light Gets In” at the base of the spiral staircase through Mid-November. The next exhibit starting in mid-November will be Tablet Tableaux by Sheila Nemtin Levine