Page 14 - magazine

I was born into the fourth generation in The following week I arrived at the center
a family of pearl jewelers. When I was for the blind with a large selection of
younger I never wanted to join the pearls. Every type of pearl I could find.
family business. My ambition was always Round pearls, asymmetrical pearls,
to become a school teacher. But as the flat coin-shaped pearls, each with a
Rechavia was the son of the distinguished kabbalist saying goes, “A person often meets their different texture and feel to it. Sitting
and gemstone trader Rabbi Shlomo Moussaieff. Born in destiny on the path they take to avoid around a table I distributed the pearls
Bukhara in 1852, in what is today Uzbekistan, he studied it”, and so, I was enticed into the jewelry to the elderly group and told them to
Torah with the greatest scholars of Bukhara and became world not by family, but by a young man describe what they were holding. This
a collector of rare religious texts and manuscripts of who at the time knew nothing about was the magic trigger that sparked no
Maimonides and Rabbi Haim Vital. This collection is it. Isaac’s passion for designing jewelry less than an hour of group discussion
currently housed in a special section of the Bar Ilan proved contagious and together we and conversation. Going around the
University library. built up Yvel and my plans to become a table, each person described what
teacher lay dormant. they had in their hand. Only the person
In 1888, aged thirty-six Rabbi Shlomo Moussaieff had with the perfectly round pearl guessed
amassed great wealth, and motivated by religious It was some years later after the that he was holding a pearl. The rest of
convictions he decided to move to Jerusalem. After the business was on its feet and doing well the group was unsure what they held
long arduous journey of many months, Rabbi Shlomo that I decided to volunteer weekly at a in their hands. The different pearls were
Moussaieff arrived in Palestine and opened a jewelry center for the blind in Jerusalem. passed around, and after many guesses,
shop in the old city of Jerusalem. As the patriarch of the The Pearl I was assigned to a group of I announced that they were, in fact, all
Moussaieff clan, he became one of the founders of the senior citizens and charged holding pearls of different types. I then
Bukharim neighborhood of Jerusalem. He himself built with the task of befriending and explained how to test if the pearls were
a complex of apartments for use by twenty-five poor Connection engaging them in conversation. authentic by scraping them against their
families which included four synagogues. These have After a frustrating afternoon teeth, which led to further discussion of
remained in continuous use until today. Rabbi Shlomo by Orna Levy devoid of meaningful interaction how (unlike other gems) a genuine pearl
Moussaieff was a devoutly religious man, committed to or rapport, I started to think of another can be detected by our senses alone.
living in the Land of Israel. On his deathbed, he stipulated idea.
that only those of his sons who lived in the Land of Israel I needed something to help start a By using pearls, I had achieved the
would receive his inheritance. conversation, something that would meaningful interaction that I had
engage the senses rather than the hoped for, and at the same time shared
From Rabbi Shlomo Moussaieff of Bukhara (later mind – but what? It was at that point I something personal, something that
Jerusalem), the family grew into a large illustrious and turned to the one thing that had been so is entwined with my family history. I
colorful family. Many of the family members became prominent in my life since birth that it was continued to volunteer at the center
jewelers, and even today the Moussaieff name is almost invisible – pearls. Pearls and pearl and repeated this ‘lesson’ with other
associated worldwide with the production and sale of jewelry had been the primary livelihood groups. I felt that in a small way I had
fine jewelry. Which brings us back to Orna as a young girl, of my family since the 1870s. Maybe they achieved my early ambition of being
sitting in her mother’s jewelry store at the King David Hotel, could be put to another use. a teacher, but without abandoning my
innocently unaware that she was destined to become destiny.
the fourth generation in a line of prestigious jewelers.
This later became clear when together with Isaac Levy
she founded Yvel. Not only did Orna and Isaac create Orna Levy as a child “A person often meets
a worldwide fine jewelry brand, they did so in Jerusalem. their destiny on the path
This would no doubt make Orna’s great-grandfather they take to avoid it”.
doubly proud.
Jean de La Fontaine

From top:
Rabbi Shlomo Moussaieff
Lea Moussaieff
on her wedding day
in New York 1921.

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