Joanie Rosenthal of Westfield, NJ graduated Syracuse University Cum Laude with a BFA in Illustration.  She’s illustrated for magazines including Time, US News and World Report and The NY Times Magazine, as well as book covers for Scholastic, Penguin Putnam, Simon and Schuster, and Dutton.  Joanie’s work has been accepted in jury shows at the Society of Illustrators in NY for many years.  You can see her portfolio at www.morgangaynin.com.  Her portrait work and oil paintings are in private collections throughout the country.  This is Joanie’s first tzedakah box.

Joanie’s inspiration:

I found the simplicity of the box to be so beautiful, and decided to work with that simplicity in my creation.  My main inspiration was that, while I do not speak or write Hebrew, I think it is a beautiful language, both when spoken and when written.  I wanted to design a tzedakah box that would give me a chance to utilize the Hebrew language, and have my children - the next Jewish generation in my family – who learn Hebrew at Solomon Schechter Day School, be a part of this project by making sure I got the spelling and the lettering of the Hebrew word “tzedakah” correct.