Longtime Bethesda resident Tamar N. Fishman, who in 2018 designed the official Chanukah stamp for the U.S Postal Service, passed away on Aug. 14. She was 88.
A Jerusalem native, Fishman was part of a cohort of late 20th century Judaica artists — including David Moss, Betsy Plotkin Teutsch, Jay Greenspan and Jeanette Kuvin Oren — that revived Jewish folk art traditions that otherwise might have been lost.
While in college in Jerusalem, Fishman studied botany. Before her graduation, she married a young American rabbi and Jewish educator named Sam Fishman and moved with him to the United States.
She completed her master’s degree in botany at the University of California, Los Angeles, while her husband served as campus rabbi there. The couple eventually resettled in the Washington, D.C., area and started a family.
A self-taught artist, Fishman first studied papercutting around the time of her eldest son’s bar mitzvah, decorating their synagogue with cutout designs backed by colored cellophane.
Fishman created intricate papercuts and ketubot, or wedding contracts, as well as designs for tapestries and Torah covers for her synagogue, Congregation Beth El of Bethesda.
“Tamar took us on as her family, but she was completely devoted to her actual family,” said the congregation’s Rabbi Greg Harris at her Aug. 16 funeral. “Tamar’s passing leaves a hole for each of us.”
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan gave a specially commissioned papercut created by Fishman to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on the occasion of the latter’s state visit.
But in 2018, Fishman got a commission that would literally put her in wide circulation: Her papercut design of a menorah was chosen for a U.S. Postal Service stamp, issued jointly with Israel, celebrating Chanukah. The stamp also celebrated 70 years of diplomatic relations between Israel and the United States.
“The image was inspired by the first drawing of a menorah found in a cave,” said Fishman.
Behind the menorah, the stamp art features a shape that resembles an ancient oil jug, representing the miracle of the oil that burned in the candelabra in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem for eight days. Additional design elements include dreidels and a pomegranate plant with fruit and flowers.
“You keep growing and just don’t stop,” Fishman, then 82, said after a ceremony at the historic Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, unveiling the stamp. “That’s the work of my hands.”
Fishman is survived by her husband of 65 years, four sons and 11 grandchildren.
Jmore staff contributed to this report.
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