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Paper cuttings for Shavuos — a Jewish folk tradition

JL;DR SUMMARY Paper cuttings, known as shvueslekh, are a traditional Ashkenazi Jewish decoration for the festival of Shavuos. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish CustomsShavuosJewish ArtCultural AdaptationVilna GaonAshkenazi TraditionMayer KirshenblattShvueslekhPaper CuttingFolk Art

Places mentioned

Opatow, Holy Cross, Poland
"When Mayer Kirshenblatt was a young boy in Opatow, Poland, in the 1920s, a memorable way of celebrating the spring holiday of Shavuos was decorating the home with greenery and original paper cuttings, known as shvueslekh, pronounced in his Polish-Yiddish dialect as shevieslekh."
Lviv, Lvivshchyna, Ukraine
"A shvueslekh. Courtesy of Lviv Museum of Ethnography and Crafts"

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Cairo Item ID 52775
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-05-30 05:31:10 UTC
Curated 2025-05-30 08:31:13 UTC