Back in Israel, I pursued two humanities degrees, as well as a teaching diploma, at Tel Aviv University. After graduating from my BA and while doing my MA I taught high school History and Jewish Studies.
Taking a year off in 2015 after my MA, I served as a teaching assistant at a liberal arts college in upstate New York. There I took several arts courses. These inspired me to leave my teaching career and pursue more creative aspirations.
Upon my return to Israel, I started working at a printing house, learning to print works of art for our clients and to build picture frames for their projects. At the same time I was moonlighting as a handyman around Tel Aviv. It was in this capacity that I began doing carpentry work for clients. While doing so, I shared a creative space with designers and makers, which furthered my appreciation for Industrial Design and the process of design in general. From here on I spent most of my spare time creating objects of my own design for friends, family, and clients. I was even accepted into a year-long mentorship program for designers, even though I was the only participant who did not come from a formal design school.
That same year I met my wife Yuval, who was beginning her BA in Visual Communications at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. We decided to move together to Jerusalem, where I was accepted to work at Bezalel as a workshop manager in one of their campuses. With Yuval’s encouragement, I doubled down and enrolled in an MA program in Industrial Design at Bezalel. During this time I concentrated on defining my identity as a designer, namely focusing on researching the value of craftsmanship in the digital age. Coming from handywork, but also working in a digital space, I had become fascinated by the relationship between traditional and new, digital forms of craft.
For my MDes thesis I developed a technique to selectively glaze ceramic materials with a laser engraving machine. This process was interesting in and of itself, as the process of structuring a new type of craft led me to obtain meaningful insight into the manner of digital craftsmanship and its relation to more traditional crafts.
At this time Yuval and I are seeking to relocate. My aspiration is to continue working within the design space, as a maker, designer, or as a lecturer. However, I hold a wide skillset which I believe would make me an asset for other fields of industry. I maintain that I am an autodidact, and this has been my greatest strength as a designer, as an independent contractor, and as a dedicated worker for Bezalel Academy.
Besides design, I am an avid cook (in fact, I am my wife’s live-in, private vegan chef), a foodie, a weekend gamer, I collect vinyl records (which I reluctantly will have to leave behind in Israel), and I am especially fond of my pet cat Spinach.