Fabrangen Memorial Quilt

This quilt is a changing ritual object, as leaves are added periodically.

Most of the photos on this page and in the header of the web page were taken by Lloyd Wolf in July 2012. The quilt already looks different, as a number of leaves have been added since then. The photo on the right, taken in September of 2019 by Richard Rodriguez, reflects the changes in our families and community.

Text along the pool: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

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Here is the origin of the Fabrangen Memorial Quilt, written by Sheryl Segal.

“In 1988, after the death of my dear friend, Nina Kahn, I wanted to memorialize her name. I proposed that since Fabrangen was then, as it is now, a community without  a permanent building of its own, that we create a portable wall hanging for our memorials – similar to the hangings described as used by the Israelites to beautify the Temple. Fabrangen was interested, and supported my idea, so I asked fiber artist Shirley Waxman for her help in designing and making the Memorial. She graciously agreed to be our artistic leader. I organized a group of people, mostly Fabrangeners, but some other folks participated because of our mutual friendship with Nina.

We worked on the Memorial for several months, embroidering Hebrew texts and designing beautifully embellished fish and flowers. We took pieces home and convened at Shirley’s home every couple of weeks to put our pieces together and to get new parts of the Memorial to work on. When the whole Memorial was ready to stitch together, we had to bear down and get it done – organizing ourselves to meet and accomplish all the work that needed to be done at Shirley’s home was a major commitment for us and her.

Finally the great day was reached and the Memorial was finished. It was dedicated to the Community at our next High Holiday service. We started with many names that already needed to be memorialized – Nina, my father and nephew, Dick Frankel’s parents, Gilah Langner’s aunt, Rebecca Levine’s mother – those are some of the ones I remember personally, but there were many others. We hung the memorial at George Washington University Hillel, where Fabrangen then held services, and it shined down on us during services. It was itself a thing of beauty, but it was also a heartwarming memorial for those of us who had names stitched on those leaves. As time went on, we sadly added names of Fabrangeners – Abbey Ziffren, Hannah Ticktin, Warren Glick, and many, many others whom we lovingly remember. A list of the original names on the Memorial is attached as a label on the Memorial, as is a brief account of its origin and the people who worked on it.

The memorial was designed to be used as a chupah, and it has been used for that purpose several times. It is also, of course, a work of art. However, it is mainly a memorial for Fabrangen, and when we see it at services or other functions, it adds beauty and warmth to our community.”

— Sheryl Segal

In Memoriam
Leaves on the quilt as of 2019

Arthur Arnson
Jane Auth
David Barocas
Shirley Barocas
Amy Biehl
Marc Daniel Blum
Dorothy F. Braun
Howard E Braun
Virginia Brown
Mel Cohen
Miriam Cohen
Carl Dahlke
Janet Ehrlich
Theodore Ehrlich
Morton Eisenberg
Shaindel Elberg
Sylvia Flick Elfant
Hannah Levy Frankel
Julius Frankel
Joseph Garfinkel
Rose Sylvia Garfinkel
Marla Gilson
Warren Glick
Carla Fritz Goldman
Harold Goldman
Ruth Goldman
Tirzah Goldsmith
Dorothy Gould
Shirley Gould
Sidney Graboyes
Esther Green
Rachel “Preeti” Greene
Sherwin Greene
Eva Sofie Hamburg
Hans Henry Hamburg
Evelyn Harris
Zahara Heckscher
Jerome Hoechstetter
Marian Hoechstetter
Kenneth G. Holum
Mary Horowitz
Ben Jacobson
Lisa Jacobson
Sol Jacobson
Ephraim Kahn
Muriel Kahn
Nina Kahn
Selma S. Kantoff
Bernd Kiekebusch
Max Kleiner
Regina Gerst Kleiner
Irma Kolodny
Louise Schramm Koose
Elsa F. Laster
Emmanuel Laster
Edith Lesser
Vivian Levin
Meyer Nathan Levine
Paul Lichterman
Lillian Lipshitz
Abraham Lis
Charles Isial Lupu
Marian Koffman Lupu
Herbert Marcus
Peggy Marcus
Herschel Matt
Esther Nechin
Max Nechin
Lisa Newell
Daniel Paradise
Alan J. Perlis
Sydelle Perlis
Amy Plotkin
Leo Plotkin
Vera Plotkin
Albert G. Reuben
Sara I. Reuben
Chalon Rodriguez
Isabel Rodriguez
Ronald Rosen
Laura Goodman Rosenberg
Jonah Rashi Rovinsky
Rashi Rovinsky
Sara Rovinsky
Asher Segal
Marcia Segal
Hilda Siegel
Gerry Simon
Pete Simpson
Arnold Smith
Sylvia Smith
George Spiegel
Ruth W. Spiegel
Art Spingarn
Alfred Steinschneider
Rosalind Steinschneider
Isaac Stilkind
David Teitelbaum
Perry D. Teitelbaum
Baruch ben Sarah v’Shlomo Tepfer
Ben Teplitz
Leon Thorne
Regina Thorne
Esther Ticktin
Hannah Ticktin
Max Ticktin
Buddy Timberg
Beatrice Weiss
Jordan Weiss
Mildred Weiss
Gloria Whitman
Diane Yaffe
Leah Zahler
Abby Ziffren