Tag: writing

Tahara Guidebook

December 16, 2017 /

This is a manual I produced for the Chevra Kadisha (literally, “Sacred Society,” a volunteer group which prepares the deceased for burial) of Cincinnati. The previous manual had no illustrations, and some of the Chevra’s procedures had changed when the local funeral home moved into a new facility. I also seem to remember that there were inaccuracies in the previous guidebook, in regard to certain customs and prayers – but I no longer have a copy of the old guidebook, so I can’t verify that. At any rate, the new book was produced with the imprimatur of the late Rabbi Zelig Sharfstein, who headed the local rabbinate, after consultation with Rabbi Elchonon Zohn, a well-known authority and president of the National Association of Chevra Kadisha. I was a participating member of the Chevra, and I had attended some of their training sessions with Rabbi Zohn, so I appreciated the need for the revisions, and I had first-hand knowledge of the procedures which needed illustrating.

Looking now at the page with the contents and credits, I see that only took credit for the typesetting. I guess I was feeling modest at the time. I still have my photographs and sketches, on which I based the diagrams, as well as the Photoshop and Illustrator files.

The printed guidebook was produced on legal (8.5 x 11) paper and saddle-stitched; I modified the layout for the PDF posted here.

 

Cincinnati Torah (2013 – April, 2018)

December 13, 2017 /

Years ago, a friend and former coworker started agitating for a locally produced parasha sheet – a weekly, one- or two-page publication with insights into the weekly Torah reading and religious holidays. The Kollel wasn’t ready to take the project on, so he arranged for a local synagogue to distribute it. I was already producing the synagogue’s newsletter, and I ended up also doing “CZE Torah,” as it was called, in my “spare” time – which was barely enough for me to scan the material for glaring typos.

At the beginning of 2013, the parasha sheet finally became a Kollel project. It was renamed Cincinnati Torah, aka Torah miCincy (a Hebrew pun). The weekly was also given an additional raison d’être: coverage of the Kollel’s activities and programming. The quality of the layout improved, and I started editing the content in earnest. I was able to make more contributions as a writer now, which I enjoyed, but the tradeoff was that I also ended up becoming the guy who had to ask other people to write pieces for the sheet.

In 2016, the Kollel expanded both its staff and its programming. The parasha sheet got a minor facelift, and Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Crystal took over as what I call “Contributing Managing Editor,” overseeing the creation of more varied content and soliciting contributions (written contributions, that is; another staff member took charge of finding sponsors). I continued in my role as “Contributing Production Editor,” doing the design and layout, editing the content, and writing the occasional piece, until April, 2018, shortly after I left my post at the Kollel .

There’s an archive of several years’ worth of parasha sheets at cincykollel.org, but here are several issues from the most recent iteration of the parasha sheet, including three for which I did some of the writing.

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Here are three earlier issues with content I wrote.

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And, finally, here are some badges I created, to identify special or seasonal content that spanned a series of issues.

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