Personal interview with Etsy merchant Rina Lutzki-Levy
The first purchase I made on the ACHI Market Place was a beautiful woven necklace with seed pearls from Etsy merchant JewelRina. I loved my necklace so much, that I contacted Rina via her site on ACHI: http:// achi613.org/achi-market/vendors/jewelrina-handmade-jewelry
and asked if she could make me a bracelet to match. She said she would, if she could match the color of the cord she used. I didn’t think too much about it, but the story became clearer after speaking to Rina personally.
Last week I received a What’sApp from her, asking me to try to trace the package she had sent. She wanted me to have the bracelet for Chanukah, but the mail is slow. This morning, to my surprise, I opened the box of my matching bracelet. I got in touch with Rina immediately, and decided to ask her for an interview for our buyers.
What an amazing story! Rina was born and raised in Petach Tikva and pursued her degree in biology thru to a Masters degree in Science. Her field was genetics, and along the way- the student who sat next to her in many classes, Aharon Levi became her husband. They chose to live in Kfar Adumim, and have five children and seven grandchildren so far! Rina and Aharon both worked for the Israeli Police Force, as forensic scientists. Aharon was an arson specialist, while Rina worked on “fingerprinting” drugs (determining geographic origins) in the narcotics division. After twenty years, Rina developed severe allergies to the chemicals she used in her research and her fingers were no longer useful tools. Rina’s motto was “ never give up ” so she tried different occupational therapy strategies till she came up with beading- an art course which changed her life’s direction into the world of jewelry- Rina is color blind, so matching the cord of my bracelet to my necklace really was an challenge for her!
Rina belongs to an artist cooperative in Tel Aviv called “Chomer Tov”, located on Shabazi Street in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood. She has many other pieces of jewelry there, and each piece is unique. I personally recommend JewelRina to those of you looking for beautiful jewelry at reasonable prices. We aren’t flying right now, but I’ve made a tentative promise to meet her at the closest Waffle Bar as soon as possible. Meet you there too. In the meantime, visit her on www.achi613.com- the ACHI Market Place.