Hi, we are Ruth and Rebecca. We met at a Baby & Me class at the Silver Lake JCC—two design professionals and Jewish mothers who bonded over new parenthood, creative pursuits, and shared loss. Having both lost our fathers, we connected through humor and honesty, jokingly calling ourselves “The Dead Dads Club.”

Ruth’s father, Richard Siegel was the visionary behind The Jewish Catalog, the influential 1970s DIY guide that reimagined Jewish life as creative and home-centered. Paired with Rebecca’s involvement in Reboot, a nonprofit reimagining Jewish tradition, we continue a shared legacy: honoring the past while creatively evolving it for today.

We see how hard it is for people, especially our millennial friends losing their parents, to navigate grief without tools or tradition. Judaism offers an incredible roadmap for mourning, but most people don’t know where to start.

When we searched for something as simple as a yahrzeit candle, everything on the market looked like a repurposed gefilte fish jar. Plastic. Paraffin. Crooked labels. Zero soul.

So we designed our own to be elegant, sustainable, rooted in tradition and welcoming to all. We love the concept of “Hiddur Mitzvah”—elevating the mundane into a thing of beauty, intention, depth. We hope you will join us in our upcoming Kickstarter to make this ritual object accessible and approachable for Jews and non-Jews alike, and to bring meaning and elegance into life’s hardest seasons.