Mere Mortals
Presenting a beautifully reimagined yahrzeit candle launching on Kickstarter May 8

Design professionals Ruth Siegel and Rebecca Garza-Bortman met at a Baby & Me class at the Silver Lake JCC, bonding over new parenthood, creative life and shared loss. Having both lost their fathers, they formed an immediate connection—one grounded in humor and honesty—calling themselves, half-jokingly, “The Dead Dads Club.”

That connection became the foundation for Mere Mortals and led to the development of a new kind of Yahrzeit candle.

Ruth Siegel’s father, Richard Siegel, was the visionary behind The Jewish Catalog, the iconic 1970s guide that reimagined Jewish life as creative, personal and home-centered. Paired with Bortman’s involvement in Reboot, which reimagines Jewish tradition and rituals, the two women created Mere Mortals to continue a shared legacy: honoring the past while creatively evolving it for today.

Siegel and Bortman saw how hard it is for people 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 they 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 they designed their own. It is elegant, sustainable, rooted in tradition and welcoming to all.

The first product from Mere Mortals is a reimagined yahrzeit candle—elegant, sustainable, and rooted in the Jewish value of hiddur mitzvah: elevating ritual through beauty, care, and meaning. Designed to be both grounded in tradition and open to all, it brings intention into one of life’s most vulnerable rituals.

Now, they’re launching a Kickstarter on May 8 to bring this vision to life—and they need community support to make it happen.

This is more than a product. It’s an invitation to reshape how we show up for grief, memory and ritual.

Mere Mortals was developed with support from Reboot, reflecting a shared commitment to evolving tradition through creative practice.

Be part of it. Support the Kickstarter. Help bring Mere Mortals into the world. Find out more at meremortals.club.