Rivka Sue Newman

Rivka Sue Newman comes from a family of educators. “My grandfather always told us that he wished his children to be doctors or teachers,” she says. “A doctor saves people’s lives; a teacher helps others live better lives.”
Newman’s parents are both retired professors of geology. She teaches ceramics and painting after school at Hebrew Academy in Bloomfield. She is also an art student at the University of Hartford, currently concentrating on photography and documenting Jewish life in West Hartford.
Newman’s name tells the story of her life journey thus far. Born and raised in Chongqing, China in 1965, she says, “my parents gave me my Chinese name Sue, which means a pretty girl who works for her brilliant future. Rivka is my Hebrew name. I chose it for myself because I liked the love story of Rivka and Yitzhak in the Torah.”
Newman’s mother and ancestors lived in Kaifeng, the northeastern Chinese city that was home to a thriving Jewish community starting in the eleventh century.
“My maternal grandmother told me stories of the Chinese Jews in Kaifeng,” she says. “She told me that she never went to a Buddhist temple, and never worshiped idols. When I asked her why, she couldn’t give a reason; she just emphasized that we shouldn’t believe in idols. I wondered if my ancestors were Jewish. I became interested in Jewish history and Jewish life, and wanted to visit the land of Israel.”
After earning a degree in library science at the local university in the late 80s, Newman worked as a librarian at a technical college and completed a four-year-long evening program in English literature at the Sichuan Foreign Language University.
She continued to explore Jewish culture. “After doing some library research, my father and I were amazed by the incredible Jews and their accomplishments in Israel,” she says. “My father said, ‘This is a wise people; go and learn from them.’”
Newman moved to Jerusalem in August 1999 and worked as a caregiver to the elderly, and used her earnings to study Hebrew in an ulpan. She was introduced to Torah study and Jewish traditions by the family she lived with.
“I celebrated Jewish holidays with Jewish friends,” she says. “I loved the Sabbath; I felt joyful when Sabbath candles were lit on Friday evening. At the Sabbath table, I enjoyed hearing that people were talking about Torah. When I saw the havdala candle lit, we said goodbye to Shabbat, and began a new week. I liked the circle of Jewish life.”
Newman says that, after her “Jewish soul” had been awakened, she had no choice but to be a Jew. “And in spite of that, because Jews have been persecuted through history just for being Jewish, I felt that it was so dangerous and complicated to be a Jew,” she says. “But I loved Judaism deeply, and I entered a three-year conversion study program in Jerusalem.” Newman converted to Judaism in 2003, under the auspices of the Orthodox Rabbinate’s Beit Din in Jerusalem.
With knowledge about gemstones from her geologist parents, Newman got a job with the Diamond Exchange Center in Ramat Gan, and was sent every two months to Hong Kong and China. On one of those trips, she was introduced to Jeffrey Newman, an American working in Asia. The two married in Jerusalem in 2005 and moved to West Hartford.
Rivka Sue continued to study, learning jewelry-making and eventually launching RivkaSue Designs. She had a daughter in 2006 and when the family relocated the following year to Tokyo, she took classes in ceramics and fine jewelry design. She taught Chinese language and calligraphy at an international school. The family became involved in the local Jewish community, keeping kosher and Shabbat, and going to synagogue and Chabad educational programs.
They returned to West Hartford in 2009. Rivka Sue entered the University of Hartford fine arts program the following year. When it was time to choose a final project, she didn’t have to look far.
“I’m a mom and wife first, so I didn’t want to leave everything behind to do only art,” she says. “I create art from everything around me, like photographing my daughter playing or at school. I realized that my own life is about Jewish life, and that each Jewish community I have lived in is so different. I got the idea to document what I find in the West Hartford Jewish community.”
Newman researched local Jewish history and is now creating a modern-day chronicle of the community, using traditional black-and-white photographic techniques. It’s another way to settle into her new home. “When we came, I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t even know how to drive,” she says. “I needed to learn everything from the beginning. But now, we’ve made some wonderful friends in the Jewish community.”
To see Newman’s photos visit rivkasuephoto.blogspot.com.