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Tamar and I find a spot outside in Petworth one windy afternoon. Over coffee, we chat about her work in Speech and Language Pathology, selling her octogenarian grandmother’s watercolor paintings, non-verbal communication, showing love through learning languages, and her favorite Hebrew and Yiddish phrases.
Samuel: What brought you to the DMV?
Tamar: I’m from Bethesda! I came into DC in Fall 2022 to go to grad school at Gallaudet for Speech and Language Pathology. And I’ve been here ever since.
Samuel: What’s kept you here?
Tamar: My parents still live in Bethesda, and I’m very close with them, so it’s important for me to be near them. I grew up coming into DC frequently and just love all the things that there are to do. Before I moved down here, I would just constantly be driving into the city to build community and go to events. I thought it was so fun, and I loved walking around. I feel like DC has everything I want at the moment, except for living on the water. Some nicer bodies of water would be great. My siblings live in Portland, Maine and they have the harbor and all these islands. I love the water there. But besides that…I love how green DC is. I love the trees, the little parks. It’s clean and fresh. It has everything a city can offer you, but is nurturing for the soul from a nature perspective.
Samuel: You mentioned Speech and Language Pathology. What does that field look like day to day? What hooked you on that as a subject?
Tamar: Day to day, I do early intervention work, which is working with the birth to three years old population. I go to daycares and homes and coach caregivers on language strategies and ways to help their child’s communication grow. The thing that made me sink my teeth into this is: I find people fascinating, and I find being able to communicate and talk and connect with people through language fascinating. I speak a few languages, and I love talking with strangers, and –
Samuel: We can’t just skip through that!
Tamar: I speak Hebrew and Spanish and sign language to varying degrees. It’s enough for me to be able to talk to a lot of people. DC has a really big Spanish-speaking population, and a really big d/Deaf and signing population. But yeah, I love communicating with people. I like to think of [my work] as being a communication therapist, not just a speech therapist. It’s about forming thoughts, communicating, and getting your message across to connect with another person. I think it’s one of the most important things we should have the right to do: to connect with each other. I want to help the people who haven’t figured out how to make their voices heard, or for whom the typical ways of communicating are not accessible. How do we build tools for them so that they can connect with the broader world? And how do we help the broader world understand that people communicate differently, and that that’s valid? You should make room for others, for all manners of communication. That’s what keeps me going.
Samuel: How do you think this work has changed how you communicate in your personal life?
Tamar: Growing up, I considered myself to be a quieter person in social settings. I do a lot of listening, I felt very socially anxious. Over time, I’ve realized that I process information differently, or I need more information before I’m ready to talk. I have a lot of patience for being in quiet and communicating non-verbally, with looks or smiles or body language. I’m very in tune to how people communicate just with their bodies. That’s a big part of my work; kids are always communicating, even if they’re not using words. As I’ve done this work, I’ve been thinking about how comfortable it feels to me to communicate in ways besides just words, words, words all the time.
Samuel: What’s your Jewish community like? What was it like coming to the city and building that up as an adult?
Tamar: That was a really big, scary transition for me. I would say to people: I don’t know how to be Jewish outside of my family’s home. I was in a Jewish bubble. We always did Shabbat dinners, I went to Jewish day school, Jewish summer camp, blah, blah, blah. Needing to make my own rituals was scary. And where were the people I was going to do this with? I got very plugged into Capital Qvellers, the queer Jewish group, and was on their leadership team for a few years. Those are a bunch of my friends. But Jewish life and identity for me now is really centered on Shabbat and, honestly, using Yiddish and Hebrew phrases and being outwardly Jewish with those cultural touchpoints.
Samuel: Do you have a favorite phrase?
Tamar: I use balagan and sivuv all the time. Like, I’m doing a sivuv around the block to look for parking. And my partner’s been learning Hebrew now for over a year, so we’ll talk together sometimes.
Samuel: Was that for you? How’s that make you feel?
Tamar: Oh, so good. Like, that’s the most romantic thing she could ever do, yeah? But she’s also on her own Jewish journey, which is so meaningful to me. She started learning so she could understand what she was reading in shul and to connect with me and my Grandma and Saba. Hebrew and Hebrew music is really important to me. Learning how to manifest that again outside of my family’s home has been a big part of feeling Jewish in my adult life.
Samuel: Okay, a couple quick ones to close. I hear you sell your grandmother’s watercolors.
Tamar: Oh my God, I’m so excited! So, my grandma’s an artist. She’s 87, she hasn’t painted in a long time, but she’s amassed close to 1,000 pieces. She did watercolor nudes.
Samuel: Oh??? [Editor’s note: The editor had been informed that Tamar’s grandmother painted, but not the content of the paintings. He nearly fell out of his seat.]
Tamar: They’re phenomenal. When we were getting ready to move her and my Saba out of Brooklyn and closer to us, I asked her what I should do with all these pieces. She said: Just throw them out. I said: Definitely not! So I gathered them, I inventoried them, and I’ve been selling them for almost two years. We just did a show of her work at Woolly Mammoth. It’s been so fun and special to re-engage with her work and to get her excited again – clearly, she’d been apathetic. Now I give her checks and tell her about the people who bought them. It’s a really rewarding and fun project.
Samuel: Does this feel like a particularly Jewish project to you?
Tamar: The idea of legacy comes up a lot in Jewish spaces – either from a Tikkun Olam perspective, or a Holocaust remembrance perspective, or the idea that you know you’re Jewish and should tell your stories and pass this on. So that’s a big thing: identity and legacy. She’s a Holocaust survivor and went through a lot, and it pained me when she was like: I don’t care, just throw it out. It’s meant so much to me and my family. I feel so proud to be her granddaughter. Getting to share this art with the world is part of my family’s legacy, and feels like a way of giving her a voice again. And that feels Jewish.
Samuel: You’re hosting Shabbat dinner and can bring any three people. Who are you inviting?
Tamar: Frida Kahlo. She’s my idol. And I would like to meet my great-grandparents, my father’s grandparents. I’ve heard so many stories and I’d love to meet them.
Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Tamar: We talk over each other.
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