Antoinette Matlins 20-July and 28-Sept. 2006- To Life! A Celebration of Vermont Jewish Women

About this film

Antoinette considers herself 'Jewish by discovery.' Her father's Italian Catholic family came from Sicily and her mother's Protestant family from England, Ireland and Scotland. Her parents eloped and were married by a Baptist minister in a small wedding. Antoinette was born in Washington, DC in 1945. Her mother brought up her two daughters in a local Baptist church, inculcating in them her personal values of tolerance and acceptance. Her mother worked as a secretary for the State Department and her father was a professional gemologist. Although Antoinette studied ballet and was offered a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells Ballet in London, she instead pursued a bachelor's degree and graduated from Mary Washington College at the University of Virginia with a BA in sociology. Twenty years later she found herself following in her fatherâs footprints studying at the Columbia School of Gemology, which her father had founded in Silver Spring, Maryland. Antoinette is a world re-known gemologist who has written several books on gems and stones. 'I do mining and get calls from other countries to help their miners understand what they are looking at. I teach them and help them get their [new}…

Directors & creators

DAVAR: The Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Subjects

Vermont; gemologist; Shir Shalom; Jewish Lights Publication

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