Israel is known to be a paradox of old and new. You can generally find things that are thousands of years old or very, very new. Sites of antiquity or cutting edge hi-tech. And very little in between. The lack of space in Israeli homes dictates that very few mementos are kept, there’s just no room – no attic, no basement and the storage area is usually for things like Succah boards and old tax returns.
But Israel is also full of history mavens and collectors who circumvent these tendencies and manage to keep collections of old, though not ancient stuff, despite the limitation of space and protests from their spouses.
One such collector is Binyamin Ben-Ari (not his real name), 71, of Petach Tikvah, whose collection includes at least a thousand books and hundreds of items testifying to Jewish history with a focus on Israel and Judaica.
Although he started his vintage collection only 10 years ago, Ben-Ari collected coins and stamps when he was very young, but gave them away. That changed during the Yom Kippur War in a deserted canteen in the Sinai when he saw a soldier drop to the ground. He thought he’d seen an enemy soldier but what he was actually doing was collecting Egyptian coins he found on the ground. Ben-Ari followed suit and a collector was born.
Ben-Ari gets his artifacts at markets and auctions, from friends and online. He sells them to be able to afford new items and delights in buying, selling, trading, receiving, and researching the items he acquires. He loves the feeling of holding history in his hands. His collection includes keychains, kerosene lamps, periodicals, money, documents, stationery, weapons and appliances – anything and everything.
Ben-Ari made Aliyah with his family from Târgu Mureș Transylvania in 1959, when he was seven years old. Collecting antiques connects Ben-Ari to his childhood. Sometimes literally.
“There used to be a children’s magazine called HaEretz Shelanu (Our Land) in the 1960s. I had a couple of poems published in them,” he says. “One day, at an auction, they were selling the magazine by years. I took a chance and bought the 1965 editions, and discovered my poem The Dove in one of the magazines.”
No one in his family shares his love for his hobby but, Ben-Ari says, “As long as I enjoy it, I don’t care what happens to my collection later.”
But his future heirs shouldn’t be too quick to dispose of his treasures. Some of the collection is quite valuable and that part Ben-Ari keeps in a safe at the bank. For example his most valuable piece is an Anglo-Palestine bill. He also has the building plans of a building at Allenby 18 in Tel Aviv which still stands.
The oldest pieces from his collection are coins from the Bar Kochva period and Chashmonean dynasty. When I asked whether these coins shouldn’t be in a museum, he said that there are actually many of them floating around and the museums have enough. Apparently discovered coins only have to be turned in to the Antiquities Authority if they are gold.
From more recent times, Ben-Ari has a collection of 150 keychains from the 1950s and 60s when businesses would use them as advertising gimmicks with their logos.
The collection is too big to keep in one place, so aside from his home and a safety deposit box at the bank, he keeps parts of his collection in various other places like the home of one of his daughters and the shul storage room. Unfortunately flooding damaged part of his collection there.
Ben-Ari says that when he goes on his antiquing expeditions, it opens up new worlds for him.
Ben-Ari also gives historical tours of Tel Aviv, Zichron Yaakov, Neve Tzedek, and Maskeret Batya, informally to family and friends. For example, there’s Independence Way, in Tel Aviv, which has 10 historical sites within one kilometer.
Before he retired, Ben-Ari worked as an investment advisor at Bank Leumi. I guess from his collection, we can assume he believes that investing in the past is as important as investing in the future, and as a people with a rich and priceless past, we know that there’s truth in that.
