Photo: Courtesy of Ella Judaica
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
Ella Judaica is a small family business that we started just a few years ago. We strive to make our customers happy, so all our products are made with love and attention to detail. We specialize in home décor, gifts, and Jewish items, both ritual and decorative.
What inspired you to become an artist?
I have always been a creative person; I have always liked making things. For a long time, I was working just to make a living, but then my life arrived at a crossroads when I met my wife, and I immediately felt a change was necessary. From that moment, I decided to chase my own passion – family, holidays, tradition, and making people happy. Ella Judaica was born from my desire to honor Jewish traditions by creating meaningful items that would bring happiness and light into Jewish homes around the world.
What is your specialty?
We offer all types of Judaica products, but we primarily specialize in printed and embroidered textile pieces. This includes luxurious tablecloths and table runners for every occasion, beautiful challah covers, and fully customizable kippot and tallit, and tefillin bags.
What makes Ella Judaica products unique is the amount of creative freedom given to our customers: kippot, tallit and tefillin bags, tzedakah boxes, hand towels, and more can all be fully customized in the customer’s choices of materials, colors, and embroidery designs.
How and where do you work?
We have our warehouse and studio in Los Angeles, California, however most of our business comes from e-commerce for retail. We offer wholesale service options to local shops as well as larger organizations, including Wizo and Netflix.
What is the most indispensable item in your studio?
I would say that our best-selling item is the Shalom Aleichem tablecloth, that’s probably our best seller of all time so far, since we started offering it in 2019. When we were first creating it, we had a feeling that it was going to be a hot product – and it certainly is, even 2 years later!
Where do you take your inspiration? Are you pursuing any themes?
I grew up in Jerusalem, the holiest city in the world, so a lot of our work is inspired by the cultural and spiritual significance of my hometown. Several of our products even include designs of a beautiful Jerusalem skyline!
Do you do bespoke work?
Yes! Most of our products are made in-house here in Los Angeles, using our own original designs, and we are proud to offer a wide selection of products that customers can customize to their individual tastes.
What projects are you currently working on?
We are in the process of redesigning our website, making it more accessible and easier to navigate. We are also working on new Rosh Hashana products to debut this fall, and then we have a first draft going for a big surprise coming this Hanukkah!
What is or are your favourite items in your current collection?
I especially like our Lucite products, including modern wall art, Jewish home blessings, challah trays, and tzedakah boxes – and I’m excited to start developing more new ideas!
How do you know when a piece is finished?
We hold ourselves to a high standard of attentiveness when it comes to our customers’ desires and requests. When a new product hits the market, we pay close attention to every comment and take every piece of feedback into consideration, always trying to improve our products’ designs with our next releases.
What was the first artwork you ever sold?
The first products I ever sold were two challah covers with embroidered portraits of famous rabbis. One has the Baba Sali z”l, who was a great Moroccan teacher and kabbalist, and the other has the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson z”l. Both of them have the words “Likvod Shabbat v’Yom Tov” – “in honor of Shabbat and holidays” – on top and our old logo from our parent company, Broderies de France, in the bottom right corner. Those pieces hold a special place in my heart, but of course we’ve certainly come a long way since then!
Which project have you enjoyed working on the most so far?
All of them! We started Ella Judaica because of our passion and enjoyment of making things. Everything we create, we always have fun working on, because everything is made with lots of passion, love, and dedication.
What do you want to achieve with your work and what are your wishes for the future?
Our ultimate dream is that one day, our products will be in every Jewish home around the world, that every Jew will have a piece of Ella Judaica of their own. I think that would be a really special way of bringing everyone together.
Where can we find your work?
We have a website, plus we also have shops on Etsy, Amazon and Shopify. We are also active on Social Media, we have pages on Facebook as well as Instagram.
Photos: Courtesy of Ella Judaica
