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Bezalel Kirshner, affectionately known as "Bentz", was born in Germany in 1948 and moved to northern Israel a year later with his family, settling at Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov in the Jordan Valley. Always inquisitive and mechanically inclined, the young Bentz -- nurtured by the hands-on, do-it-yourself approach of kibbutz life -- began to quickly master a wide range of different craftsmanship skills, but woodworking was always his favorite.
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After moving to the Tel Aviv suburb of Azor as a teenagaer, Bentz enrolled in after-school carpentry classes and eventually apprenticed himself to a local furniture-maker. By the time Bentz had completed his military service and returned from a 7-year assignment managing asphalt plants in the jungles of Africa and Central America, his lifelong romance with the art of woodcrafting had transformed from "hobby" to "vocation", and toymaking had emerged as the passion guiding this labor of love...in particular, toys of the animated variety.
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By 1999, Bentz's reputation for consummate workmanship & creative vision had transcended well beyond the local crafts fair scene, and was duly rewarded when he received a rare comission to create a wooden "menorah" (Jewish candelabra) for exhibition at the prestigious Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
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