Hands, Hinges, and Aromatics at the Madison Conference

For three hours in a light-filled studio near Lake Mendota, attendees of "Practicing Jews: Art, Identity, and Culture" set aside their notebooks and picked up jeweller's saws. The workshop on crafting Havdalah spice boxes drew a mixed crowd of academics, sculptors, grandparents, and curious students, all gathered around benches strewn with copper sheet, brass rod, and small jars of cloves. By the end of the afternoon, twenty-three new ritual objects sat on a long trestle table, each one stamped with its maker's initials and faintly smelling of cinnamon and ground ginger.

Havdalah marks the close of Shabbat, and the spice container sits at the centre of that ritual. Held after the blessing over wine and the braided candle, the box is opened so the fragrant contents can restore the spirit to ordinary time. Across the Jewish world, these objects have been hammered, turned, cast, and embroidered for centuries, ranging from elaborate Italian filigree to carved wooden pomes and humble tins. The Madison workshop treated the box less as a precious heirloom and more as an everyday vessel, something a participant could finish in an afternoon and carry home that night.

The conference itself, hosted by the University of Wisconsin–Madison, ran for a full week and pulled in presenters from Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, and Brooklyn. Sessions on dance, identity, and Yiddish modernism shared the campus with a small gallery of contemporary Judaica. The workshop offered a counterweight to the lecture halls, a place where ideas about Jewish material culture became tangible.

A long way from the snow of Wisconsin, attendees and online readers alike have been thinking through what such a workshop means for Australian communities. Melbourne's Caulfield, Sydney's Dover Heights, and Perth's inner suburbs each support active Judaica studios, but opportunities for guided, in-person making are rarer than the finished objects suggest. The Madison session gave Australian viewers a useful model: a structured, hands-on afternoon that still leaves room for personal interpretation.

Inside the Studio

The room itself was plain, with plywood workbenches, clamp lamps, and a single window overlooking a frozen courtyard. Workshop leader Adina Klemperer, a metalsmith based in Brooklyn, walked participants through the construction sequence at a measured pace, repeating each step for those who missed it the first time. A teaching assistant circulated with a tray of sandpaper and a roll of copper tape, ready to help with stuck hinges or stubborn lids.

Quiet conversation filled the space between saw strokes. Some participants worked in pairs, with one holding the metal while the other filed an edge, recalling the kind of slow, cooperative making that has been part of Jewish craft practice for generations. The atmosphere stayed focused but relaxed, more like a community centre than a classroom, which suited the brief well.

Sourcing the Spices

A working spice box needs filling, and the workshop took the contents seriously. Small glass vials held whole cloves, cardamom pods, star anise, and dried cinnamon quill, alongside the more traditional bay leaves and allspice berries. Klemperer pointed out that the blend is open to interpretation, and several attendees mixed their own combinations to suit the scent profile they associated with childhood Sedarim or family Havdalah gatherings.

In Australia, this part of the project runs into a familiar obstacle. The country's strict biosecurity rules restrict the import of untreated plant matter, so bringing in fresh bay leaves or loose cardamom pods from overseas requires permits, inspection, and sometimes irradiation. Most Australian Jews source their Havdalah aromatics from kosher grocers along Melbourne's Acland Street or from specialist spice merchants in the Sydney CBD, where blends have been tweaked over decades to suit local supply chains.

Forging Form from Flat Sheet

The technical part of the session focused on simple silversmithing. Participants learned to saw a copper blank, file it square, and shape it into a small lidded cylinder using a brass rod as a mandrel. A pierced lid, drilled with a pattern of small holes, allowed the scent to escape while keeping the contents contained. Rivets replaced solder for many makers, a cleaner, reversible joint that suited the workshop's modest toolkit.

For Australians who travel to craft fairs at the Rosebery Markets or browse handmade Judaica at the Habithon in Melbourne's south-east, the techniques are recognisable. Local silversmiths such as those working at the Glen Eira jewellery studios have built small businesses on exactly this kind of approachable, geometric metalwork. The Madison workshop suggested that the same methods can sit comfortably in a synagogue community programme, a school holiday class, or a craft circle held in someone's living room.

Identity Poured into the Box

Each finished container carried traces of its maker. One participant etched a wandering Magen David into her lid; another pierced a delicate tree of life; a third kept the copper bare so the patina of use would slowly colour the metal. Klemperer emphasised that the object does not need to be polished or precious. A dented, hand-finished box, well used, carries its own memory.

That idea of an object holding personal history has long interested Australian Jewish artists, several of whom exhibited in last year's Jerusalem Biennale. The conference conversation in Madison gave those watching from afar a useful prompt: ritual objects made by hand behave differently in the home, drawing the maker back into the moment of their creation every time the spice lid is lifted on a Saturday night.

The Senses and the Ceremony

Havdalah is a sensory event, and the spice box is its most tactile element. The smell of clove and warm spice is meant to comfort the soul as Shabbat recedes, a kind of olfactory bookmark between sacred and ordinary time. Workshop participants were encouraged to smell their finished blends before the lids went on, connecting the act of making directly to the ceremony the object would later inhabit.

For Australian practitioners planning to bring a Madison-style workshop home, the geography matters. A summer Havdalah on a Melbourne balcony smells different from one held in a Sydney winter, and local aromatic traditions, from lemon myrtle to native pepperberry, sometimes creep into Jewish ritual kitchens. The Madison instructors offered no recipes for that crossover, but the format left room for it.

A Practical Path Forward

Anyone inspired to try the project can begin with a single sheet of copper or brass, a piercing saw, and a small bag of mixed besamim from a kosher grocer. Drawing a pattern, cutting it carefully, and riveting the form together takes a single focused afternoon. The Australian Jewish community already supports dedicated craft studios and occasional short courses, and a workshop modelled on the Madison session would translate well to a synagogue hall or a community centre art room.

A useful starting point is to bring a finished box to a Saturday night Havdalah at a local congregation, fill it with a personal spice blend, and pass it around the table. That first use will shape the next one far more than any plan drawn beforehand.