Does it look more like a menorah … or half a cantaloupe?
Zip over to the Richmond District in San Francisco and decide for yourself how to interpret Stanley Saitowitz’s award-winning re-design of Congregation Beth Sholom.
Or bring a piece of Saitowitz’s newly released Judaica collection into your home and ponder up close and personal his unique intersection of modern architecture and sacred Jewish objects.
A professor emeritus of architecture at U.C. Berkeley, even though he isn’t yet 60, Saitowitz first became interested in designing Jewish objects 10 years ago — after he submitted the winning entry in the Jewish Museum of San Francisco’s menorah design project.
“I was brought up in a really Orthodox household in South Africa and there was a lot of Jewish tradition,” says Saitowitz, a San Francisco resident who taught at U.C. Berkeley for 33 years and now works for Natoma Architects. “I felt there was very little quality in contemporary Judaica, [which has] become the next step for me after designing [Beth Sholom] and the Holocaust Memorial in Boston.”
Just as the newly designed Beth Sholom aims to illuminate contemporary Jewish values, as well as unity and egalitarianism, Saitowitz also wants his Jewish objects to reflect Jewish tradition explicitly.
“A lot of contemporary Judaica is ornamental,” says Saitowitz, who also designed the Visual Arts Library at U.C. Berkeley and the Tampa Museum of Art. “But Jewish tradition is not to make graven images. My objects are not decorative. They’re not about trying to look pretty.”
Saitowitz notes that after several people, including the Bronfman family in Toronto, purchased his some of the menorahs he designed 10 years ago, he was inspired to develop a full Judaica collection.
Saitowitz’s modern collection includes a mezuzah case, Shabbat candlestick holders, a Kiddush cup, a matzah box, a Havdallah set, a tzedakah box, a seder plate and a menorah. Everything he designs is meant to be used, not merely displayed, he says.
His menorah “acknowledges the miracle of continuous light for eight days, and encapsulates the ceremony of illuminating Chanukah lights,” he explains. It is made of steel and “finished to a deep, stain-resistant pewter color reminiscent of Eastern European 17th-century Judaica.”
Another of Saitowitz’s objects is the mezuzah case, which “embodies the tradition of slanting toward the room, implying that God and Torah are entering,” the architect says.
Saitowitz’s Kiddush cup “has six handles so that when it is passed around the table, each participant has their own,” he says.
Saitowitz expressly chose to have his products manufactured in the United States. “They are high-quality crafts and beautifully made,” he says proudly. “We didn’t want to make them in traditional retail fashion in some village in China.”
Saitowitz also sees architectural design and his ceremonial objects as ways to educate people. “Part of the process of what architecture can do is to promote new ideas,” he says.
And new ideas are what helps infuse Jewish tradition.
“Each of the pieces in my Judaica collection is a contemporary expression of ancient objects,” he says. “As instruments, they aim to make visible the ceremonies they facilitate. Their forms emerge from the blessings they are required to fulfill.”
The Judaica Collection by Stanley Saitowitz is available at www.saitowitzjudaica.com. Also available at the modern furniture and accessories store Propeller, 555 Hayes St., S.F. Coming soon to other local retail outlets and museums.