New Jersey Jewish News
MeetroWest Feature Story

Morristown entrepreneur crafts a company based on ‘whimsy’

by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

Michele Lifshen Reing had an epiphany while wandering through the aisles of crafting stores like Michael’s and A.C. Moore. The two retailers are part of a $30.6 billion industry, providing hobbyists with all they need for their beading and scrapbooking, quilting and candle-making, baking and rubber-stamping.

“I kept thinking, ‘This stuff is amazing. Why is there nothing like this of comparable quality in the Jewish market?’”

In November 2004, she launched Pink Pinwheel Inc. and, last spring, its first product line, The Creative Judaica Kit Company. Creative Judaica is exactly what its name implies — a Jewish crafting company.

Her first product, Queen Esther’s Cookie Kit, contains all the ingredients for a Purim celebration. It includes crowns, groggers, Purim stickers, and supplies to make Purim cookies. It even includes Lifshen Reing’s own midrash explaining Queen Esther’s success with King Ahasuerosh — she wooed him with her cookies. “I just love the idea of putting on a crown and decorating cookies in the kitchen,” the entrepreneur said.

The product is assembled by clients of the Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest in East Orange in its sheltered workshop for people with disabilities.

While the first product focuses on a holiday, Lifshen Reing said she plans to move into everyday Jewish life, with things like tzedaka boxes and even scrapbooking kits. Her market? The 2.9 million Jewish households in the United States, including the 50 percent not affiliated with any Jewish organization or synagogue. “How do we reach them? What’s out there in the marketplace for them? Many are interfaith and turned off by the religious stuff out there or are simply not belongers. But they still want to observe their culture. How do we reach them?”

She thinks her kits may offer an answer.

“After doing some research, I definitely saw the Jewish market is way underserved,” she said. “Hanukka is the biggest Jewish free-for-all out there, and the stuff is really so pedestrian, stereotypical, and ordinary. And it doesn’t impart any meaning to the family. My mission is to preserve and promote Jewish heritage and culture. I want to give people something to embrace that empowers them and makes learning about Judaism fun.” She said she also plans to market to Jewish educators.

Lifshen Reing, 38 and a resident of Morristown, has had her share of careers. An artist, pastry chef, and Web designer — with degrees and experience in each field — this rabbi’s daughter said she has finally found a way to fuse her divergent interests together and simultaneously end her religious soul-searching.

While friends and family and members of the local community bought her kits last year, she hoped to find a wider appeal.

Attending a “fancy food” show last summer, she learned about the Newark-based small business incubator IFEL, the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership. She applied and was accepted in September 2005. Pink Pinwheel is one of five companies affiliated with IEFL.

Since then, she has put together a business plan and a financial statement and projection, and has enjoyed being mentored by her business coach, IFEL executive director Jill Johnson. “I feel fortunate to be a part of the incubator. They provide business skills and financial skills I really need, and I’m being exposed to industry leaders who will open a lot of doors.” She has also been able to view her product through another lens — Johnson, who is African-American, suggested the products would work well for members of other ethnicities seeking to preserve their traditions. Lifshen Reing has added such a goal to her long-term vision for the company.

Part of her determination stems from a family tragedy; last year, just as she was bringing her kits to market, her brother, who suffered from schizophrenia, committed suicide.

“It really slowed me down, and I came to a crossroads. It was either go forward or go back,” she said. “I decided to go for it.”

In her brother’s memory, she donated a percentage of the proceeds from her enterprise to Stairways, a nonprofit organization that had tried to help him. It’s something she plans to do with all of her products. “I did this for him, but also because I have a social consciousness. It’s something I was raised with.” Pink Pinwheel, she said, is “more than a retail company; it’s a mission with a brand.”

Her relationship with JVS is tied to that same mission of tikun olam. “When I found JVS I thought, ‘Wow. It’s in my own backyard: a Jewish organization that serves the whole community, not only Jews.’ I love Jewish outreach to the community beyond ourselves.”

To date, Lifshen Reing said, she has invested nearly $40,000 of her own money into The Creative Judaica Kit Company and would like to attract investors from the Jewish community. So far, however, she has not met with success. “I was at the federation General Assembly in Toronto in November. I saw an incredible body of Jewish philanthropy, but how do I tap into that? They are funneling money to nonprofits. I’d like to find a forward-thinking philanthropist interested in investing.”

Meanwhile, Lifshen Reing has already received a dose of on-the-job training. “You can’t make a product with $12 worth of copper cookie cutters. You have to make a living.” People purchased the kits last year for $39.95, but not without “grumbling.” So this year, Lifshen Reing dropped the price to $29.95 and said she would seek lower-priced components and outsource aspects of production overseas to cut costs. She has also found that holiday products require plenty of advance marketing. This year, Queen Esther’s Cookie Kit can be found at J. Levine, Chai Kits, 1-800-Dreidl, kosher.com, and directly, through her own Web site.

By the fall, she said, she plans to unveil a few more products, something “exciting” in time for Hanukka. “There’s so much that can be done,” she said. “It just takes some imagination and a little whimsy.”

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