kimpetbrivl greeting card for the birth of a child!

This piece is a reimagining of a kimpetbrivl, or cradle letter, an amuletic tradition usually created from paper cutting that was hung by newborn babies’ cradles to provide spiritual protection. Instead of providing protective blessings to a individual human child, this piece is meant as a collective kimpetbrivl. The symbolism of this piece reflects both the creating and care and the rupture and reckoning involved in calling other possible worlds into being. The natural elements evoke traditional healing remedies from Ashkenazic and biblical Jewish traditions, as well as representing different ways that plants adapt for survival - from thorns and shells to mutualism with pollinators. The central text in Yiddish is inspired by a Yiddish blessing for those who have just given birth, “You have split open my body wondrously like You did the sea.” For this reimagined protective amulet, the Yiddish text reads, “we will split open wonderously, like the sea.”