Renowned Jewish biblical artist SELMA HURWITZ passed away peacefully on Thursday April 6. She was 89. A native of Red Bank, NJ, she was the youngest of four siblings born to Samuel and Annie Walters. After studying briefly at Syracuse University, Mrs. Hurwitz moved to Washington in the late 1940s, working briefly at WWDC-AM, before meeting her husband, Harold, a chemist and computer programmer, who died in 2013.
She and Harold moved to Potomac in 1965, and raised three sons. The oldest, Mark, who passed away in 2002, was a well-known blues musician in Washington, working under the stage name of "Lips Lackowitz," fronting his band, Tough Luck. Their middle son, Seth, is the co-owner of Washington's highly-successful 9:30 Club and promotes concerts throughout the region under the I.M.P. banner - a business he began in his bedroom in his parents' Potomac home. The youngest, Matt, is an accomplished entertainment journalist living in Los Angeles.
Inspired by her mother, an embroiderer, Mrs. Hurwitz developed her own unique art medium in 1964, after gluing a piece of her mother's metallic-wound thread onto a piece of paper to create a swan. From that, she created Had-ba-kah - Hebrew for "gluing" or adhering - made by gluing metallic wound threads of different colors onto a dark cotton-flocked museum board - essentially painting with thread. She created over 400 pieces of artwork, mostly based on Old Testament biblical stories, as well as others focused on social issues and Jewish themes. Her work hung in many places of prominence throughout the world, from shows at Senate Office Buildings to the office of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Israel's Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. She continued producing her artwork into the early 2010s.
In addition to her sons, Matt and Seth, she is survived by her daughter-in-law, Caroline Hurwitz, wife of Seth, and their three children, Joe, Sam and Fred.
Funeral services will be held for Mrs. Hurwitz on Sunday, April 9, 2017 at 1 p.m. at Congregation Kol Shalom, 9110 Darnestown Rd., Rockville, Maryland, with burial immediately after at B'nai Israel Cemetery in Oxen Hill, Maryland. The family will be observing Shiva with a Minyan service on Sunday night at 7 p.m., at the residence of Caroline and Seth Hurwitz. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions in Selma Hurwitz's name be made to The Jewish Federation, http://www.jewishfederation.org
Temple Service
APR 9. 1:00 PM
Kol Shalom
9110 Darnestown Road
Rockville, MD, 20850