Hat Tip!

Our name is as fun and passionate as every member of our team is, as our website is, as we are together about creating amazing Ketubot (“ketubahs” as so many say!) for every one of our couples.

But we get some questions about our name. The most common is, “Huh? Wait, but you are a Ketubah!”.

Oh, we have so many ways to answer this! Where to start!

First: We’re not a Ketubah — we’re a team of artists here in Argentina that that love making ketubot. We’re not a Ketubah, we’re Ketubah-Artists!

Second: What we do make is Ketubot! Yes, they are Ketubot. Yes, our Orthodox Ketubot are valid according to the binding laws of the Halachah. Yes, we’ve reviewed them with hundreds of Rabbis (literally, hundreds now!). So yes, what we do make are Ketubot.

Third: Irony! Irony, irony, irony. Forget buffalo buffalos buffalo; instead, lets irony irony irony, irony irony with irony!

Fourth: Our inspiration for our name was the fantastic piece of art by René Magritte, The Treachery of Images. It’s the piece of art at the top of this post. If you don’t know it, you should; if you do know it, then you probably got the joke as soon as you first saw our name (and then why are you even reading this post?). Magritte’s classic piece is less commonly known by its treacherous name and more commonly know by its inscription, Ceci n’est pas une pipe — a picture of a pipe immediately below it saying that it is not a pipe. Magritte’s classic joke is playing off of the same tensions we are in our first answer above (well, I should say, we are playing off of the same ones he is; he did come first, after all! By quite a margin!): the piece is not a “pipe” but a “piece of art featuring a pipe”, etc.

Fifth: isn’t being self-referential fun?

Due to our fun name, we’re also known by lots of synonyms or variations. Lets list some of them. The most common is “TINAK.” We changed our email addresses from @thisisnotaketubah.com to @tinak.org just because so many people would not be able to spell the domain — do you know how many spellings of “ketubah” there are? (Ketubah, ketuba, katubah, katuba, ktuba, etc!). So we started going by our acronym and it stuck.

The other reason is, our full name is 7 syllables and TINAK is just 2 syllables. And as lowly Argentines, saying 2 syllables is easier than 7!

But lots of people call us by other variations of our name, inserting fun words, such as: “Not just a Ketubah” (That’s my favorite: we’re not just a Ketubah; we’re a whole ketubah experience!!!!), “Not a normal Ketubah”, and often just “Not a Ketubah”. We often call ourselves “Team Ketubah” because we think it sounds fun and cool, too. Especially when we answer the phone (by the way, we’re friendly, call us at 347-627-0022 any time you want to Ketubah-talk!).

But at the end of the day, a word is just a placeholder for a deeper meaning. And, no matter what Wittgenstein tried to convince the world (and he seems to have just been playing one big joke on everyone in the Tractus, don’t you think?), what matters is the reality below the words. We, TINAK, are committed to the awesome reality underneath everything: a Ketubah you will be proud to display in your house the rest of your life; a Ketubah that is museum-quality; a Ketubah that has the perfect and correct wording for you two; a Ketubah that makes all your Ketubah dreams come try. Why not?

-Morgan
Team Ketubah

While doing “market research” online (aka, “wasting time surfing the Interwebs, looking at lots of web wedding web pages”!) we stumbled across True Photography’s page of all photos of the Ketubot from lots of Jewish weddings where they’ve photographed the couple. And we were so shocked and excited to see two of our Ketubot featured! Yay! Thank you True Photography, we heart you!

Hey y’all (do I sound like a southerner… or what?!),

We’re completely fascinated by the Orthodox Jewish Punk Music movement. Very curious article about these guys in the New York Times.

This has completely inspired us to create a punk ketubah. Does anyone want one?

Anyone, anyone? (Said in a Ben Stein, Bueller, Bueller, tone of voice).

We’d be over-the-top excited and overjoyed to make such a unique awesome incredible fun hip modern cool new Ketubah happen. Did I put enough adjectives into that sentence?

We’re bursting at the seams here. Give us an excuse to do this, someone! :)

And don’t think, mind you, that we have a superficial understanding of punk. It’s not just a few hits from the (early) Ramones (who were Jewish, mind you). Oh no, oh no! You let our fun tone of voice mislead you! If there’s something we know about other than ketubot and art, it is the historiography of contemporary music! We sit here in our arts studio, discoursing endlessly on topics such as, How did Punk evolve into the New Wave in the early 80s? This is a fascinating question that requires endless attention to detail (just like making a good Ketubah!). Take, for example, The Clash. How could the band behind London Calling also be behind Should I Stay or Should I Go? What happened to the Punk Movement? What does this represent about the cultural shift of the early Reagan years? (That transformation is perhaps rivaled only by Jefferson Airplane/Starship’s transformation from the band of White Rabbit to the band of We Built This City.)

But it’s more than that: punk means something to us. It’s about bringing together a smorgasboard full of unyielding energy, that sounds cacophonous — but if you get it, you understand what it means underneath. But do you? Are you sure?

Give us an excuse to create the Punk Ketubah of your dreams. There must be some Jewish punk out there who wants a Ketubah.

(On a separate note, Argentine men seem to only wear Ramones t-shirts. Welcome to life in Argentina!)

-morgan
Team Ketubah

For our commissioned unique ketubot, we always create three sketches before moving ahead to create the final Ketubah.

But many couples ask us, “when we choose a sketch that we love, what’s the difference in the art between the sketch and the final ketubah?”.

In words: the sketch is just a general outline or framework, to show the positions, colors, and elements. But that’s it.

However, since an image speaks 1,000 words, here are some images. Each of these is a sketch we’ve done, and then the corresponding final ketubah.

Following our Friday afternoon tradition, we just put online our latest Ketubah, Today is Your Day. This Ketubah is an Ode to Dr Seuss.

But the best part is to come. Team Ketubah’s very own Autumn wrote the description. This definitely wins the award for the best TINAK description we’ve ever written. Enjoy it yourself:

You ordered the cake,
All your friends will come to town
The plans are almost all finished,
You even have your perfect wedding gown!

So what could be missing? You think with your thinker
A Ketubah of course! And we have just the winner!

This Ketubah is bright and full of flying bafooms,
It even has wild trees, reaching high to the moon

But what you’ll love most,
And what’s better than best
Is that couple in love
That stick out above the rest!

So today is your day
Don’t let your happiness hide
You have found the love of your life
And this Ketubah will show that with pride!

See the Ketubah yourself here!

We had an interesting request from a couple a few months ago: Ethan and his fiancee wanted to create a Ketubah that is a recreation of an old Ketubah that (if I remember correctly!) a relative of theirs used. We worked very hard and the result is… wonderful!

This one was an interesting challenge because, usually, the text and art are fairly separate. But here, the text IS the art. Every little textual change resulted on significant changes to the art! But the result is modern and we love it!

Interestingly, this was a Ketubah from the ’60s. When we think of “recreating” Ketubot, we think of recreating 18th century or ancient Ketubot. Not something hip from the hippie generation!

Our Recreation of an old Ketubah

Morgan from Team Ketubah meets one of our couples

(Note: this is a continuation of Part I, where I was speculating about what it would be like to meet one of our couples in person!).

So it finally happened: we met one of our couples in person. Craig and Neta, who fell in love with the IRT Today Ketubah, came to Argentina on their honeymoon. I ended up hanging out with them twice, book-ending their trip. It would have been more, had they not spent most of their honeymoon in the middle of nowhere Argentina, aka Bariloche.

I was very excited for the moment, since it would be a milestone. All previous couples of ours that I’ve met previously have been friends of ours. But these were downright random people, who found us using the Interwebs. Anything was possible. Mass murders? You do need to be crazy to come to Argentina, after all! Heh ;)

The first time we met was in my apartment. It turns out, the two of them are passionate about New York subways also — this is why they loved our IRT Today Ketubah! I, too, am a subway fanatic, and the walls of my apartment are covered with old-time subway maps, and we spent a long time discussing the history and details of the subway system, sharing stories about the old maps, and engaging in otherwise nerdy conversation that would put 99% of everyone to sleep. It was wonderful although, of course, they’re thinking, “The Morgan character, he can babble about obscure topics!”. We also helped them solve some crises they ran into, like not being able to get any money here!

The second time we met, we went to a great bar just past the Palermo limits. Above photo taken (I’m the one on the right, wearing a shirt I bought in Bombay!). They updated me on the hipster Williamsburg scene — apparently, I left years ago and then it became cool: typical! — and we analyzed in detail the sociodemographics of the New York Times wedding announcements. It was a fun night, of course full of alcohol.

I kept on thinking, if they lived here, I’d invite them to join my group of friends every Wednesday night when we hang out!

Conclusion: All of our Ketubot include, as an extra bonus, one or two very fun nights of drinking and conversation. If you ever make it to Argentina ;)

Morgan
Team Ketubah

It’s most common for couples, while planning their wedding, to buy a Ketubah for themselves. Sometimes, the parent’s or good friends, buy a ketubah for the couple as a gift.

But sometimes… creative children flip it, and buy a ketubah for their parents.

It’s a wonderful, unusual, and interesting anniversary gift: reminding them of the moment they got married; with more modern art than on their original ketubah; and, above all, they will hang it on their wall and see it every day — and smile.

There are many possible ways to create an anniversary ketubah, as a gift. We can do it as a surprise, or planning with them. We can recreate their original ketubah; do so with style and tweaks; or we can use one of our standard ketubot as an anniversary ketubah, or create a new one from scratch for them. We can use their original text, or one of our anniversary texts.

We can even change the color scheme to be silver or whatever the appropriate color is for the anniversary!

Questions? Sound interesting? Drop me a note and we can talk about it! I’m morgan@tinak.org !

-morgan
Team Ketubah