From Mikvah Clogs
To Marriage Togs

An art exhibit traces
the rituals of Jewish
weddings.

MIRIAM HALBERSTAM

Clockwise, from top left:
Nineteenth-century mikva
clogs are inlaid with
mother-of-pearl. A mikva
towel, from the 20th
century, is made of linen
and embroidered with silk
and metallic thread Marion
Rheinstom's wedding dress
was the height of elegant
fashion in 1920. A
contemporary ketuba from
1980 features Hebrew and
English text.

Special to the Jewish News

I

f you ever wanted to know what a wimple is
but were afraid to ask, the recently unveiled
art show at the Skirball Cultural Center and
Museum, in Los Angeles, can help you under-

stand.
"Romance & Ritual: Celebrating the Jewish
Wedding" is on display through Jan. 6, and includes
more than 200 works of art, heirlooms and personal
mementos connected with the Jewish wedding and
related themes of courtship and family life.
Carefully kept invitations share space with cher-
ished sheet music; wedding dresses give way to
kitchenware; tuxedos lead to tallit bags; portraits
capture a moment; and mezuzot take up their posts.
The artifacts have been gathered from around the
globe — Germany, Japan, Romania, Iraq, Israel and
America — reflecting diverse cultures and spanning
several centuries. But the thread woven between
items, like the detailed 1649 Venetian-crafted
ketubah, or marriage contract, and the elegant gown
worn in Los Angeles in 1949 is hope, happiness and
Jewish tradition.
According to Grace Cohen Grossman, Skirball
senior curator of Judaica and Americana, the exhibit
commemorates the five-year anniversary of the
Skirball Cultural Center and Museum.
Previously located in downtown Los Angeles at
the campus of Hebrew Union College, the museum
features an assemblage of more than 30,000 Jewish
artifacts. In its new incarnation in the Santa Monica
Mountains, the institution has incorporated the cen-
tury-old collection and expanded to include per-
forming arts and educational centers.

12/14
2001

82

It made sense then, that in marking this mile-
stone, "we wanted to do an exhibition based on our
core collection," says Grossman. The curators were
asked to come up with topics that could be pro-
duced "in-house" and Grossman, who confesses to
be a romantic, came up with the idea of doing a
show on the Jewish wedding.
Interestingly, the move from the old home to the
new address "made it possible for us to survey all of
our things and see what we had," she says.
Then, "we borrowed wedding souvenirs, anniver-
sary memorabilia, filling out what we had with
things that people save. We tried to get the story
[behind the keepsakes] and photographs of the peo-
ple who originally used and made the objects."
It's fascinating to see what people hold on to, says
Grossman. "Wedding gowns are one of the things
that people keep, much more so than tuxedos."
To wit, the "Romance and Ritual" exhibit show-

cases 10 wedding gowns and three grooms suits, six
flower girl outfits and one ring bearer ensemble —
with one gown literally "taking the cake."
"Ed Massey, a Los Angeles artist, fashioned an
incredible gown for his bride, Dawn Harris, that is
more like a sculpture," Grossman says. A 200-pound
mobile creation, the dress has a cloth bodice and
steel-frame skirt and is decked with 1,060 roses con-
structed from cloth and modeling paste. The 5-foot
train features a duck pond, symbolizing fertility.
The "Romance & Ritual" display features an
installation in which Massey re-creates his proposal
to Harris, the extraordinary gown and their 1998
garden wedding.
Traditional wedding attire from Middle Eastern
Jewish communities also is displayed. The costumes
are often elaborate and ornamental, with the bride
wearing a headdress and multiple layers of jewelry.
While the clothes set the stage for the wedding,

-