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Continued from Page 7
Several years before, Judy Horowitz held a Bark Mitzvah
celebration for her grandson’s cavachon, Lizzie.

It was her grandson’s idea, Horowitz said. Th e grandson, Sam
Horowitz, lives in North Carolina with his parents and attends
Jordan Lake School of the Arts, a school geared for students with
special needs. Aft er having his own Bar Mitzvah in May of 2015 at
Main Line Reform Temple — where Horowitz is a member — he
wanted to have one for Lizzie, too.

Sam Horowitz is on the autism spectrum, and attended Sunday
school for years through Matan, which helps Jewish communities
make accommodations for children with special needs.

“It was very meaningful for him, that he went through all of
that and became a Bar Mitzvah and became a man,” said Dan
Horowitz, Sam’s father. “Th e way he was thinking about it was that
we had had Lizzie as a puppy for a while and felt very strongly that
she was a Jewish dog and that she should have a Bark Mitzvah.”
Sam wanted all the family — and the family pets — to attend.

Th e family had never heard of a Bark Mitzvah before. Th ey
thought it was a concept Sam had invented.

“He wanted Lizzie to have the same kind of experience that he
had,” Dan Horowitz said. “Religion can sometimes be an abstract
concept for a typical kid, but for someone on the autism spectrum,
it’s a lot to work through. Going to Sunday school for all those years
helped him, but he was exploring, ‘If I’m Jewish, who else is Jewish?’”
A year aft er Sam Horowitz’s Bar Mitzvah, around Th anksgiving
of 2016, the family gathered at Dan Horowitz’s aunt’s house, where
her dogs could attend as well.

Lizzie wore a kippah and an Eagles scarf instead of a tallit
around her shoulders, Sam led a few blessings, and Judy Horowitz
shared a few words and created a program for the Bark Mitzvah.

“Lizzie, may you be blessed in the name of God who created
you and may you and Sam and Teresa enjoy your wonderful life
together,” the program read. “Take care of each other. Amen.”
It was a happy familiar aff air, Judy Horowitz said, a chance for
the relatives to come together. Most importantly, she said, Sam
was happy with how it turned out.

Back in North Carolina, he even put on another Bark Mitzvah
for someone else’s dog.

“It was meaningful for my son,” Dan Horowitz said. “Th at’s why
everybody was excited about it.”
“I don’t think it was super meaningful to the dog,” he added. ❤
szighelboim@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
8 MARCH 21, 2019
SIMCHAS JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



a Centuries-Old Craft
T JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
he ketubah, the marriage contract for Jewish weddings
outlining the responsibilities of the groom to the bride,
has long been an outlet for artists who sought to do
something special with a simple legal document.

In its collection from the famed Cairo Geniza, the University of
Cambridge Digital Library holds numerous centuries-old ketubot
drawn up with an eye toward beauty and display. Th ough
handmade ketubot are becoming increasingly rare
as the digital technology is more widespread,
there are still ketubah artists who shep-
herd soon-to-be-married couples
from visual concept to putting pen
to parchment on their wedding
days. Below, weveral local art-
ists speak about their work,
why they make ketubot and
more. ‘Wow, I Could Do
That!’ Betsy Teutsch has
been at this for so long,
she now fi nds herself
creating ketubot for the
children of marriages
she once served.

For Teutsch, a Fargo,
North Dakota, na-
tive who moved to
Philadelphia when her
husband joined the facul-
ty of the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, working
on ketubot is part of her greater
interest in Jewish art — her work
has been featured in Reconstructionist
prayer books, among other venues.

Teutsch married her husband during her se-
nior year at Brandeis, and though she had no formal
artistic training, she’d always been drawn to calligraphy. At the time,
there was renewed interest in ethnically focused art, and she felt that
there was more exploration to be done for Jews. When it came time
to pick a ketubah for her own wedding, she took matters into her
own hands. “I thought, ‘Wow, I could do that!’” she said. Friends
and family remarked on the beauty of her fi nished product and,
with that, her career as a ketubah artist was launched.

For decades, she’s created original ketubot, alongside fi ll-
in-the-blank templates. She estimates that she’s made thousands of
originals, and can’t even make a guess at how many templates have
sold over the years — they’ve been in Judaica stores, online and
bricks-and-mortar, all over the country.

She used to work with families on announcements, invitations and
diplomas, among other milestone documents, but that business
was wiped out by new digital capabilities, something
she was never interested in pursuing.

“I really came into this fi eld through the
love of calligraphy and Hebrew letters
and the beauty of hand-done letters,”
she said.

Th ough she no longer works
on ketubot full-time — she’s
now a writer, with a second
book forthcoming — she’s
still approached from time
to time by old clients,
thanking her for her
work. She was recently
thanked by a woman
who told her that the
ketubah Teutsch made
years before, now kept
in her bedroom, helped
to “frame gratitude for
my day. ”
“Th at was remarkable,”
Teutsch said. “How oft en
do you fi nd out that you are
really part of somebody’s dai-
ly rituals?”
‘Tradition Meets Contemporary’
Nava Shoham, an artist based in
Montclair, New Jersey, came to ketubah-
making in a diff erent way. Aft er moving to
America from Israel in 1993, the artist had her eyes
opened to the wide variety of Jewish denominations in this
country, something she was unaware of before the move. She
had made a few ketubot for her family back in Israel, but found
a huge new customer base, with diff erent tastes to adapt to. If
the endless scroll of happy couples with her ketubot on hand on
her website, 1800ketubah.com, is to be trusted, she cracked that
nut a long time ago.

Betsy Teutsch, Ketubah
Photo courtesy of Betsy Teutsch
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM SIMCHAS
See Ketubah, Page 10
MARCH 21, 2019
9