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| | A Lavi-designed sanctuary at South Shore Yeshiva in Woodmere, N.Y.
Photo courtesy of Lavi Furniture Industries |
A Lavi-designed sanctuary at South Shore Yeshiva in Woodmere, N.Y. Photo courtesy of Lavi Furniture Industries Picture the idealistic kibbutz of yore. What comes to mind is a circle of young Israeli pioneers in shorts and open-necked shirts, dancing the hora with Zionist zeal.
It's not that the British pioneers of Kibbutz Lavi didn't dance the hora, but when these Bnei Akiva kibbutzniks wanted to show that their community was a fact on the ground in 1966, they built a shul, with pews and an ark constructed by two members who were amateur carpenters.
Little did they know that a multi-million-dollar enterprise had been spawned.
"We didn't plan for it to be a business," explains Dov Wolpe, an American who made aliyah in 1966 and currently manages exports for Kibbutz Lavi. "But everyone came to see the shul and by the 70's, there had been enough orders that we said, 'This is already an industry.'"
Lavi Furniture Industries produces pews, railings, chairs and the occasional Torah ark for synagogues - and may someday get into the church business. The privately owned company doesn't disclose its sales figures, but it will admit to producing 600 to 1,000 seats a week, at $200 to $300 per chair.
Moreover, Lavi's furniture workshop currently receives 40 percent of its orders from the United States and has a 20-percent slice of the American synagogue carpentry market, as well as customers in locations as far-flung as Tahiti, Andorra, Curaçao and Chile. "We're major movers in this industry," says Yair Reinman, CEO of Lavi Furniture Industries and a native-born son of the kibbutz.
To that end, Lavi has helped design and furnish some 4,000 synagogues throughout the world, with its core market based in Israel and the U.S., as well as France, England and other developing European markets.
"We wanted a unique design from them, based on the design of the chairs that had been in our synagogue before it was burned by the Jordanians in 1948," says Dudu Dahan, president of the Rabban Yochanan Ben-Zakkai synagogue, part of the complex of four Sephardic synagogues in Jerusalem's Old City. "They met with us, did a sample seat based on a design that they didn't have in their factory, and did the entire job on schedule and completely professionally."
In the U.S., Lavi customers range throughout the 50 states, including Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Florida, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Texas and Virginia. With a representative based in Pennsylvania, Lavi has access to the entire American market and sends a team of carpenters to fully assemble the furniture, which is shipped partially assembled from Israel.
It's the kind of work that has its own legends. Gilad Oberman, another homegrown kibbutz member and part of the export sales team, tells of the shul in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina: when the community wanted to revamp the synagogue before they tackled their own homes, Lavi sold them the carpentry without taking a profit. In Israel, Lavi made the pews for the synagogue at the new Ben Gurion Airport terminal. While the security personnel were concerned about having the closed shtender, or adjustable storage compartment, in front of each seat - which could be used to hide a bomb - the shul's rabbi prevailed and the shtender remained.
Aside from expertise in carpentry, designing synagogue sanctuaries is a very specific niche, explains Reinman. Those involved in designing the space and the furnishings need to understand the shul's atmosphere, which varies from community to community, whether Sephardic or Ashkenazi, Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox.
"There are nuances that if you don't understand, the customer suffers," says Reinman, who sits in a simple office surrounded by photos and computer slideshows of various Lavi-designed synagogue sanctuaries.
The basic model of most synagogues designed by Lavi is European in origin, explains Wolpe, with a wooden pew of seats, each with its own shtender in front of the seat that can hold prayer books, Bibles, tallitot and tefillin. However, pews in most Conservative and Reform synagogues have a bookrack running along the length of the pew, rather than the more traditional shtender.
Lavi has even changed the way some Jewish communities think about their synagogues. Whereas most Orthodox shuls once relied on uncomfortable stackable wooden chairs and shtenders for congregants, now more and more are installing upholstered chairs made by Lavi. Indeed, 95 percent of Lavi's pews now have fabric-covered seats. The Lavi designers also think about how many times praying Jews stand up and sit down during the course of a service. The seats need to be comfortable, but worshippers need to be able to rise easily. "We offer a modern look, while protecting tradition and history," Wolpe says. "We're very sensitive to the needs of every davener in every shul. We have a place for every siddur, whether it's Birnbaum or Artscroll."
Lavi has even changed the way some Jewish communities think about their synagogues. Whereas most Orthodox shuls once relied on uncomfortable stackable wooden chairs and shtenders for congregants, now more and more are installing upholstered chairs made by Lavi.In synagogues that don't have a sanctuary but an all-purpose room that's used for prayer and social activities, Lavi creates stackable chairs with shelves underneath the seat of the chair, offering the all-important space to place one's siddur, tissues and glasses. There are also differences between Ashkenazim and Sephardim when it comes to seat styles. Ashkenazi pews tend to have joined backs, while Sephardic pews are usually seats with separate backs and joined armrests.
Lavi has a designer who works directly with the customers, as well as creates new facets to the furniture. A recent innovation is a curved row that works well in both Israel and the U.S., and carved pew ends that can include inlaid colors and carvings of pomegranates and palm fronds, which moves beyond the traditional Torah scrolls and geometric patterns.
By working with architects, interior designers and not just the "shul shammas [caretaker]," says Oberman, Lavi finds that synagogues now understand that the changes and investments they're making are ones that happen every 40 or 50 years. "It's not the kind of thing that can just be decided at a weeknight meeting of the shul president and the board," Reinman says. "We're not just selling lokshen [noodles].
"We try to take a standard and twist it a little, to give the customer the sense that they're getting exactly what they wanted," he adds.
Take the Rabban Yochanan Ben Zakai synagogue, for example, which was constructed at the beginning of the 17th century as one of four Sephardic synagogues created to accommodate the needs of different Sephardic communities. The synagogue stands on the spot of the study hall of the great Rabban Yochanan Zakkai, who established the Sanhedrin of Jewish judges after the destruction of the Second Temple. It was ruined during the 19-year Jordanian occupation of the Old City's Jewish Quarter and fully refurbished after the 1967 and Six-Day wars.
But like any synagogue, says Dahan, the seats needed updating, particularly because the synagogue is used on a daily basis and is also a tourist attraction in the Old City.
"We wanted to keep to the original style of the seating, but it was a design that Lavi doesn't have in their factory," Dahan says. In keeping with the 17th-century look of the synagogue, the Rabban Yochanan sanctuary has a very Oriental design, with deep red bench-style wooden seating that have armrests but no padding.
"We ended up with the same look that has always been here, which is so important for both our regular members and the tourists who come here," Dahan says. "We're hoping to continue working with Lavi when we refurbish the other three synagogues in the complex."
That kind of praise is always welcome to the Lavi team, which takes its customers' needs and requests seriously, even though most clients look to Lavi for ideas, whether for pews or general sanctuary design.
Lavi's projects range from Orthodox to Reform, Ashkenazi to Sephardi. Above, Temple Israel, a Conservative synagogue in White Plains, N.Y. Photo courtesy of Lavi Furniture Industries It's fairly quiet on this February afternoon, when the workers are off at lunch and are only working an eighthour shift. The Lavi furniture factory's busiest season is in the summer, when there are often two shifts a day and work can begin at 4:00 a.m. and last until late at night.
It's an extensive factory floor, employing only Jewish workers, both from the kibbutz and the surrounding area. And like any kibbutz factory, the major theme is waste not, want not. All the sawdust blown off from the shorn beech planks is blown into tubes running the length of the plant ceiling and then used on the floor of the chicken coop, which houses 130,000 chickens.
But despite the hectic pace and successful business of Lavi Furniture and its other major company, the Lavi Kibbutz Hotel, a 188-room inn that specializes in a more religious clientele, Lavi is a tranquil spot, much like any kibbutz. The kibbutz members wheel babies in playpens, while children run home from school in the early hours of the afternoon. The kibbutz cows sit placidly in their pens, just beyond a field of the four species used during Sukkot: palm fronds, myrtle trees, willows and citrons.
Located in a historically and strategically important location, the area was known as Lubia until modern times. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions the Lavi Inn, or Pundaka Halavi, which makes the kibbutz hotel all the more appropriate. In this previously forlorn spot, they had to truck in water until 1953 and had a patchwork of small factories that didn't succeed. But when the second group of Lavi founders came from the U.S. in 1966, there were substantially more members and "more possibilities," says Wolpe.
"We had no money to hire builders for the hotel and the shul, and so we did it ourselves," he adds. "That's the kibbutz way."
Jessica Steinberg is a contributing writer to World Jewish Digest.
© 2008 World Jewish Digest
From: http://www.worldjewishdigest.com/
