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The winners of the Bezalel Menorah Competition have been announced
The Department of Industrial Design invited students, faculty and alumni from all of the Departments of the Academy to a prize winning Menorah Carnival, donated by the Raanan and Nicole Agus Foundation.
The Academy community was invited to offer new Menorahs in the spirit of the period, and indeed dozens of Menorahs were submitted for the competition, some of which relating to the laws of tradition and some not, some adhered to the essence of the Jewish Menorah and some didn't. The common denominator for all of them was the dismantling and redefining the act of lighting the Menorah.
After a festive lighting of the candles via Zoom, the winners were announced:
First place – Maya Reshef and Hadar Ben-Zur joined forces in a poetic moment to create a Menorah at Maya's home in the mountains of Jerusalem, and editing the video clip at Hadar's apartment in Brooklyn New York. This was done following thoughts about a 21st century Hanukah and Lea Goldberg's song "Penitence" written as a response to a student wondering about the importance of poetry in the 20th century: "And what shall we do with the horses in the twentieth century? / and with the does? / and with the large stones in the mountains of Jerusalem?" The two built a website containing digging instructions next to illustrations and a few words in yellow and white which glow out of the darkness.
To the project's website: https://www.earthmenorah.com/
Second place – Yael Friedman, had designed an accumulative Menorah constructed of separate parts that are piled up one on top of the other, much like chairs, in order to conserve storage space. At the base of each 'candle stick' there are two grooves on one side and three on the other, which enable to assembly of the Menorah either on a straight line or diagonally. The Menorah is printed in 3D in PETG – which enables the use of candles.
Third place – May Meirson, designed a Menorah to be manufactured by a 3D printer which enables the creation of a hidden axis. In its everyday closed state it is used as a candle stick for one candle, and when the holiday arrives it grows step by step until it opens up into a fan of candles.
Audience favourite – Shelly Bone, designed a modular and dynamic Menorah which is comprised from geometric segments which enables to play with and provide a unique and different presentation in every use. The Menorah is comprised of different parts identical in height and an additional part which is used to leverage the beadle, using which each part can turn from an arm to a beadle. The arms can connect to one another, and can be piled on in different shapes, making it so that with each candle lighting it is possible to create an entirely different Menorah. At the end of the holiday the parts can be assembled into Shabbat candle sticks. The parts are printed with a 3D printer.
– An environmental team in the "Lab 212" program designed a Menorah comprised from test tubes containing different florescent materials which are added each day in the 'lighting of the candles' ceremony. The luminescence of these materials gives a new context to the lighting of the candles ceremony, to the candle as an object and to the experience of light.
