MY ALTAR
Recently, I came across this photo of an altar I had created to help prepare myself for my birthday ritual this year. I am so grateful to my dear friend G, who suggested I take a picture of it. This snapshot is a visual representation, a reflection of my identity as I understood it at that moment. Each object on the table symbolizes a stage in my life and the people that were with me during that era.
My Lineage
The black book is part of a special genre of prayer books created specifically for women. The prayers are written in Hungarian. My mother gave it to me on an earlier birthday, as a fragile and precious gift to cherish. It belonged to my grandmother’s mother, and I was told that she kept it by her bedside throughout her life.
My great-grandmother was murdered in the Holocaust, but somehow when the war was over and my grandmother and mother and aunt returned to their home in Budapest, the siddur was among my family’s few remaining belongings that their loving gentile housekeeper had managed to save for them.
This “Mirjam” prayer book coincidentally bears the title that is my own Hebrew name, and that of my great-great grandmother, and of an unknown string of women over the centuries who were named for the Biblical heroine and prophetess, Miriam.
I locate myself in this line and attribute much of my strength, resilience, deep faith and sense of belonging to these women who came before me.
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