Join us Friday, March 1, from 1 to 3 pm, for hands-on educational workshop in which Skidmore students, faculty, staff, and the public are invited to take part in the Community Torah Project. Participants will help with the stretching and scraping of a local deerskin. This immersive educational activity will engage the Skidmore community and public in the sacred production of parchment, which will ultimately be used in the creation of a Torah scroll. No registration needed. Refreshments will be provided.

This is the third and final event in Inscribing the Sacred: Creating Torah and Art, sponsored by the Jacob Perlow Lecture Series, the Religious Studies Department & the Tang Teaching Museum, with additional support by the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative (MDOCS), and the departments of American Studies and History.

Inscribing the Sacred: Creating Torah and Art Events:

• Monday, February 26, at 5:30 pm: Perlow Lecture: Rabbi Linda Motzkin on “Women and the Making of Torah"

• Wednesday, February 28, 5:30 pm: Art and the Sacred: Artist Talk with Rabbi Linda Motzkin

• Friday, March 1, 1 pm: Community Torah Project: Making Parchment from a Local Deerskin

About Rabbi Linda Motzkin

Rabbi Linda Motzkin is one of a handful of women in the world trained as a Hebrew scribe, a role traditionally reserved for men. Through her Community Torah Project, Rabbi Motzkin has opened up the sacred process of creating a Torah scroll to thousands of people nationally and internationally. Her hands-on educational workshops enable participants to engage in various steps in the making of a Torah scroll, from processing deerskins into parchment panels to stitching completed panels together. Rabbi Motzkin is also an accomplished artist, utilizing her knowledge of Hebrew sacred literature to create unique calligraphic artwork from pieces of her handmade deerskin parchment which are unsuitable for a Torah scroll. Rabbi Motzkin served for almost three decades as Jewish Chaplain at Skidmore College, and retired in 2022 from her position of co-rabbi at Temple Sinai in Saratoga Springs after 36 years of job-sharing with her husband Rabbi Jonathan Rubenstein.