Tamar Fishman, a Bethesda, Maryland-based Israeli-American artist who was at the forefront of reviving the Jewish art of paper cutting, died on Aug. 14. She was 88.
Her intricate papercuts drew from the traditional Jewish folk art, which dates back to 14th-century Spain, according to MyJewishLearning.com. Artisans used simple tools — paper, pencils, scissors — to craft beautifully wrought pieces of Judaica, including synagogue décor for Shavuot and Sukkot, the mizrach, which marks the direction one faces to pray, megillot — like the Book of Esther — and decorated ketubot — Jewish marriage contracts.
Fishman was commissioned by the U.S. State Department to create “American Landscape,” which then-President Ronald Reagan presented to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during his 1981 state visit. She told this reporter in 2018 that one of her great moments was when her father was able to see her work hanging in the prime minister’s office, as he was a friend of Begin’s secretary. “My father … came there and he saw my work … and that was worth everything.”
In 2018, Fishman was invited to contribute the art for a jointly commissioned U.S. Chanukah stamp in collaboration with Israel’s postal service. The artist’s papercut drew on depictions of ancient menorahs, as well as oil vessels and dreidels, to depict the holiday.
The stamp, in shades of blue and green, features her signature winding vines and had a print run of 12 million forever stamps. Her work over the past 40 years was also selected for juried shows by Brandeis University Women’s Committee, University of Cincinnati Hillel, the Goldman Fine Arts Gallery at the Bender Jewish Community Center in Rockville, Washington Hebrew Congregation, Temple Ohev Shalom in Baltimore and Slavin Gallery in Washington, D.C. Two tapestries she designed adorn the sanctuary of Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County in Bethesda, where she and her husband of 65 years, Rabbi Samuel Fishman, were active members for more than four decades.
Born in Jerusalem, in what was then known as Palestine, Fishman grew up in an apartment on King George Street, worked in a kibbutz kitchen for her army service and then majored in botany at Hebrew University — because, she said, she loved flowers. She met a Reform American rabbinical student who boarded with her family during his year of study in Jerusalem.
Tamar and Samuel Fishman married in 1959 and settled in Los Angeles. There she earned a master’s degree in botany and the first of her four sons was born. In 1969, the family moved to Bethesda. Fishman became a volunteer at Bethesda Elementary, where her boys were enrolled. The young family also joined Beth El.
Fishman reflected on her inspiration for the art of paper cutting in an extensive 2018 interview with this reporter: “I got that skill from second or third grade. We had an art teacher; his name was Asher Bing. And he intimidated all of us … but he’s the one that showed me how to cut shapes and put cellophane behind.”
She continued: “When my oldest was [a] bar mitzvah it was Chanukah. I decorated the shul — I took construction paper, went to the encyclopedia and I got pictures of chanukiyot from all countries, copied them and cut them out. Then I took colored cellophane paper and put it behind them, and I put them all over the windows” of the synagogue.
She reported that everyone loved the decorations and asked when Beth El changed the windows to stained glass. Alas, she continued, “I came the week after the bar mitzvah, and it was gone. The janitors threw them away. I thought I’d die. I worked for six months!”
When the rabbi approached her to replicate that project, Fishman agreed, only if she was in charge of hanging them and taking them down. Her son Mayer recalled helping by holding the tape, one piece on each finger. She designed and cut decorations for numerous Jewish holidays over the years, as well as designing tapestries from the synagogue’s main sanctuary and a local high school.
In about 1980, Fishman was approached to create a ketubah for a congregant’s upcoming wedding. “I haven’t done a ketubah in my life,” the then-developing artist told the bride. “I did the ketubah and then that summer I went to Israel, and I saw at the Jerusalem citadel an exhibit of papercuts. They were from all over …. I said I can do much better than the ones on exhibit there.”
That began Fishman’s professional artistic career. Over the decades, she designed and cut countless ketubot — including one for this writer. Each was unique and customized to the marrying couple’s requests. The process began with a personal meeting with the couple where she learned about their family backgrounds and their ideas and preferences for the surrounding artwork that frames the Hebrew marriage contract. Fishman also penned the Hebrew calligraphy. And in each of her pieces she used flowers, vines, pomegranates and other Israeli and local flora reflecting her botanist background. These intertwining stems and leaves served as the connective thread of the papercut, providing both a unifying frame and a sense of movement to the intricate landscapes she crafted with an X-Acto knife, and a precise and steady hand.
As an artist, Fishman was at the forefront of the latter 20th-century Jewish folk arts revival that spread throughout North America, then into Europe and Israel. Beyond Jewish papercuts, this revival also included the reclamation of klezmer music, Yiddish poetry, Jewish theater, Jewish fiber arts and the elevation of the Biblical commandment of hiddur mitzvah, or beautifying Jewish ritual objects from mezzuzot and kiddush cups, to reviving in-home prayer spaces with a piece of art facing Jerusalem. Today her works are in many synagogue and private collections worldwide.
Jeanette Kuvin Oren, an internationally known Judaic artist, was just beginning her career when she met Fishman in 1996. “I did papercutting. It would have been natural if Tamar had resented another artist moving into the same community. But Tamar did exactly the opposite. She and her beloved husband immediately adopted me and my young family, and we became very close friends,” Kuvin Oren, who splits her time between Boca Raton, Florida, and Jerusalem, wrote via email last week.
The two traded techniques and encouraged each other’s work. Kuvin Oren cheered on Fishman when her friend received the 2018 U.S. Postal Service commission and Fishman did the same when, in 2022, Kuvin Oren was invited to design another Chanukah stamp.
“Tamar Fishman was one of the artists who I consider part of the ‘renaissance of Jewish art’ …. [She] modernized the very old art of Jewish papercutting. Tamar’s legacy is found in hundreds of homes and synagogues around the world: beautiful papercutting and meaningful ritual art,” Kuvin Oren wrote. “Her legacy is also that the tradition of Judaic papercutting has become even more popular since she started her work. Papercutting is an accessible art and a beautiful way to continue Jewish tradition. But it was Tamar’s very special neshama [spirit] that made her and her artwork so important.”
Senior Rabbi Greg Harris of Congregation Beth El spoke of how Fishman was “everyone’s mom,” adding that aside from her beautiful art, her Shabbat and holiday dinners, too, were multi-course artistic feats that she pulled off with grace and pride. Her oldest son, David Fishman, noted that while she left Jerusalem and lived much of her life in Bethesda, “Jerusalem never left her heart.” Her youngest son, Ariel Fishman, spoke about her final visit to Israel, just a month ago in July. She took time to visit soldiers who were recent amputees and counseled their parents at Sheba Medical Center outside of Tel Aviv.
In addition to her husband, Samuel, Tamar Fishman is survived by her brother, Dan Neuhar, her sons David (Ziva), Mayer (Katie), Avi (Mara Greengrass) and Ariel (Elana), along with 11 grandchildren: Oz, Noa, Roni, Rachel, Hannah, Aryeh, Yael, Barak, Atarah, Lilah and Asher.
Lisa Traiger has written for Washington Jewish Week since 1985 and is its arts correspondent.
