Many of the Yiddish folk lullabies symbolize, directly or indirectly, the spiritual-cultural world of the diaspora Jew. The eternal dreamer, with no roots, that is always looking for his place in the world. Some of them have been written by zionists who lived in Europe or Russia with a constant longing to the holy land, or by Jewish who emigrated from eastern Europe to America. Almost all these lullabies are a monologue of a mother talking to her child. While their monotone melody is very relaxing and quiet, trying to put the child into a deep sleep, the texts have, next to heir calm and fantastic feeling also something very dark and melancholic, a bit sad, maybe not designated as children’s songs anymore, but as an expression of the mother’s distress. This tension is what I am trying to express in the book and its collages. 

The book “Tsu shlofn in eybiker ru” (To sleep in eternal repose), contains five of these original old yiddish lullabies translated also to Hebrew and German. Each lullaby is accompanied by one original and unique collage, responding to the lullaby’s dreamy, melancholic, and dark content. The book pages are handmade paper, each made out of five very thin layers, containing Abacá fibers. The collages are made in a special technique: the elements of the collage are embedded within four different levels between the five transparent layers, creating a unique depth. The elements which appear nearer from one side of the paper, are seen further away from the other side – what creates eventually two different pictures, each from a different side. The text is printed on both sides of the transparent paper. The translated text, printed mirrored on the back, appears weaker than the original yiddish text printed on the front, creating typography that matches the technique of the collages.