Furniture designs of October 7 victim to get own space near Tel Aviv
Ayuna, Yonat Or’s Kibbutz Be’eri workshop of retro-style wood-and-glass pieces, will have a gallery in Dan Design Center
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
The retro oak and birch furniture pieces and designs created by Yonat Or, a Kibbutz Be’eri member who was killed on October 7 by Hamas terrorists, will have a gallery of their own in the Dan Design Center, a retail furniture space near Tel Aviv that’s open to the public.
Like Or’s Be’eri workshop, the gallery will be called Ayuna, Yonat Or’s nickname coined by her father, Hanan Besorai, a carpenter who ran the Be’eri woodshop and developed his daughter’s love for all things wood.
The kibbutz, along with the design center, and Or’s family are all involved in the gallery’s creation, and have continued working on her designs.
“I worked with Yonat during the last few years as Ayuna blossomed, and in one moment, everything was stopped on October 7,” said Tomer Golan, director of business at Be’eri.
Or’s husband, Dror Or, first thought to have been taken hostage but months later was identified as killed on October 7, his body taken captive to Gaza by Hamas.
Two of the Or’s three teenage children, Noam and Alma Or, were taken hostage and released during a weeklong ceasefire at the end of November.
“We have to do everything in order to bring Dror back to be buried beside her, and to continue to speak up for and remember our friends and loved ones who were killed,” said Yonat Or’s father, Hanan Besorai. “We’ll be comforted by rebuilding our land.”
It was Besorai who inspired Yonat’s love of woodworking. She first had a small corner of the workshop and when her father retired, she took over the space to create a boutique carpentry studio.
Working with carpenters and designers, Or created retro-styled furniture, harking to the vintage styles she loved and combining solid natural woods with glass and finishes from the past.
In an interview with LaIsha magazine in 2022, Or spoke about her love for vintage and collecting.
“As a child I would breathe in the smell of wood and sawdust with black coffee and I loved this place,” she said in the interview. “Later, when I moved back to the kibbutz, this place was occupied and I said to myself: ‘One day it will be mine.'”
The Ayuna Gallery will be dedicated on July 15 at 11 a.m., on the second floor of Dan Design, gallery 228.
