“We’ve gone through two wars here in the past four years,” noted Ben Moshe, referring to Israel’s eight-day Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 and 2014’s Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip. “Sderot is less than a mile from Gaza and has been under fire for 14 years, but people here are very brave,” he added.
On a recent afternoon, Ben Moshe invited a visitor into the operation and the large protected area where workers take shelter when Israel’s Red Alert siren gives a 15-second warning of an imminent rocket attack.
In the 2012 war, Menorah was forced to close for 10 days when the area came under frequent bombardment, and anxiety among workers was a constant companion.
In June 2014, a direct rocket hit on a nearby paint factory was one of the attacks that brought Israel into the monthlong Gaza War. The factory was completely destroyed in the attack, and four workers were injured.
When that happened, Ben Moshe, who makes the 90-minute commute from Jerusalem every day, said he considered moving his factory to the Jerusalem area, but, ultimately decided to “stay here forever. I consider it our mission to be here.”
“Candles have soul,” Ben Moshe asserted. That’s what attracted him and two partners to buy the veteran company in 2012, after a successful career as a vice president of several large Israeli corporations and a brief experience producing candles in Turkey.
Ben Moshe, 44, the son of a Canadian-born mother and an Iraqi father, served as an IDF paratrooper and is the father of four. An observant Jew, he takes pride in providing for the religious needs of Jews worldwide.
He’s quick to note that Menorah has expanded over the years to produce and export Shabbat candles, memorial candles, Havdalah candles, and, in the last year, individual cups of olive oil. Many in Israel prefer to commemorate the Hanukkah miracle of a single cruse of oil lasting for eight days in its original form.