As well as the formal documents that a scribe produces be they kitvey hakodesh (holy writings) and legal documents such as keteubot and gittin, some scribes (like me) are also open to indvidual calligraphy commissions to mark a special anniversary, retirement, award or similar landmark. Or even just to have some personalised hand-crafted Judaica to place on your wall in your home.


Whether on paper or parchment, illustrated or not, these are built around the recipient. This may be a special piece of liturgy, a biblical excerpts, a psalm or poem, a group of verses with an acrostic (see below) or even a contemporary text.


Often smaller than other works they are no less meaningful if they speak to the individual(s) involved.


On this page I've added a couple of examples of special commissions. One to mark the retirement of a rabbi and one for a special landmark birthday.

 The first involved a a collection of verses that the rabbi's colleague brought together to make an acrostic of the rabbi's Hebrew name, by making the start or key letters in the verse larger..

After some back and forth we worked out the best way of tackling it it making sure that there wasn't too much stretching as different verses were markedly longer or shorter than others. Sorting out layout can be time-consuming. The recipient also liked flowers, lupines, irises and gentians, so at least one was to grace  the final  piece.  You can see the initial few words and the final piece.

The client wrote to say 'thankyou for this magnificent piece. Rabbi .... was so delighted, as we all of us'.

The second was calligraphy only and marked a social birthday (I think ninetieth, one doesn't like to ask) including birthday wishes and the lady's favourite piece of liturgy, Adon Olam. The interesting challenge here was cutting a very broad kulmus (quill) and writing much larger than one would in a Sefer Torah to fill a specified size.

If you are interested in a personal calligraphy commission designed to your specifications, please contact me.