פאלוך מאכט ארון קודש פאר די פענטעגאן
Artist Moshe Gani. At left, one of his works. (Daniel Tchetchnik)
An ark for the Pentagon
By Gal Karniel
An ark (for holding the Torah scrolls) was recently installed in the Pentagon's synagogue, whose ceiling was damaged in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Artist Moshe Gani designed the copper work symbolizing the 12 tribes of Israel that adorns the ark. "I wanted to create something that had both modern art and Israeli art," he says.
Gani, 44, is a graduate of the Vitale School of Design (1991) and works in the Danny Henker store in the Bnei Brak Design Center. "I just stood in front of the ark and then the muse came to me," he says.
He used to have a studio in the Jaffa flea market. "The colors and aromas of the market inspired me, but around five years ago, something happened, and I had to close," he says. Now he designs mezuzas, Torah scroll crowns, mantles and lecterns for Hasidic rabbis (he designed one for the Admor of Pzemyslan, pronounced Parmishlan). His works, intended primarily for synagogues commemorating living rabbis or honoring the memory of deceased rabbis, are heavy, because of the copper and have a certain naivete to them that is reminiscent of children's drawings.
"Children's art," he says, "is pure. There is no evil or desire in it." He adds: "Working in Judaica allows me to perpetuate my art. An ark is something that is not replaced even after a 100 years."
Gani studied Judaism and kabbalah and during his wanderings met Simcha Paluch, a builder of synagogue arks from Bnei Brak. Paluch was commissioned in April 2005 for the Pentagon synagogue job. The Pentagon's chaplain at the time contacted his son, Yosef Paluch, who lives in Brooklyn and manages his business in the United States. "I was very excited and impatient before the work started," says Paluch. "The Pentagon is one of the most important institutions in the U.S., and the ark is what my business revolves around and on top of that, I'm emotionally involved in it."
Paluch, 53, is internationally renowned as a builder of synagogue arks (in Israel, there are only two or three people who do this). He started off his professional life as a carpenter. Until 20 years ago, he was building mostly kitchens and bedrooms. Seven years ago things started to take off.
"A synagogue ark is a costly thing," says Paluch of the difficulties of the market. "The Torah scrolls, in any event, are now kept in a safe, because of insurance requirements. When you build a synagogue, first you put in a bimah and benches and by the time you get to the ark, there's no money left, and most synagogues make do with a decorative board."
He attributes his success in the U.S. to the effort he makes, which comes from the heart. "In America, if the carpenter doesn't earn well, he won't do the job, and there isn't a lot of profit in making arks."
A decision to do something
The way Paluch sees things his path from a kitchen carpenter to one of the world's leading manufacturers of synagogue furniture was fraught with miracles, coincidences and divine providence. For example, he relates that in 1996 following the death of the Admor of Gur, Rabbi Pinhas Menachem Alter, he came to prayer services and saw that the new admor was praying using a Jewish Agency-issue table, covered in laminated plastic. "I decided to do something," he says, "and the next day I came to prayer services together with the new admor (Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter) carrying an elegant table. If I'd requested permission to bring it in, they would've turned me down. But we happened to arrive together, the admor and I, and the table became a fact."
When the admor asked to pay, "I told him that I would rather receive a blessing," says Paluch, "and he said that I have good hands and an artist's sense, that I should focus on special things and let others handle the financial aspects."
Paluch earned a name after creating the ark for the synagogue of the Dushinsky Hasidic sect on Shmuel Hanavi Street in Jerusalem.
When Paluch got the Pentagon job, he put Gani in charge of the adornments. "The ultra-Orthodox are very conservative, but in the Pentagon, I felt I had a free hand," says Paluch. "Other than dimensions, they didn't insist on anything."
He says there is no explicit Halakha (Jewish law) on building arks for Torah scrolls. "It's important that the Torah scroll is not positioned less than 90 centimeters off the floor and you need to have some emotional attachment to the matter, prepare yourself mentally for the work."
Gani agrees. "When dealing with things that are very deeply spiritual," he says, "it's not an easy matter and almost always there are unforeseen delays. Usually it involves some moving personal story or it's in memory of someone who died." As an example, he cites the mantle for a Torah scroll he designed for a Netanya synagogue. During the procession to bring the Torah scroll to the synagogue, some patrons in a nearby cafe were so entranced that they joined the procession and thus were saved from a deadly terrorist attack - a car bomb exploded there. "In most cases," says Gani, "I donate my work and the materials. It does me good. I feel innocent, clean and pure."
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