Israel Bonsai
Collective
The Israel Bonsai Collective brings the country's bonsai growers and artists together. We want it to be a place where anyone working with these trees feels at home, from people on their first tree to growers with decades behind them.
We pass on how to grow and shape bonsai through workshops, exhibitions, and meetups. Part of the work is keeping people here in touch with what's happening abroad.
Official Members of the EBA
The Collective is an official member of the EBA, the European Bonsai Association, and represents Israel on its roster. That connects us to the standards European growers work to, and gives us a direct line to federations across the continent. Most of the knowledge sharing happens through those contacts.
We stay in touch with other member organizations and borrow plenty from them. A few:
Austria, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are in the mix too, among others.
The network keeps our members current with what's going on elsewhere. They can join international conventions and reach growers and information from across Europe.
The Collective is an umbrella for anyone working in the field or just curious about it. It isn't here to compete with existing groups or replace them. The point is to grow the bonsai community in Israel, amateurs and professionals both.
Nice to meet you, I'm Moranne
I'm Moranne. I own a consulting firm for tech companies. I'm not a bonsai artist. I'm married to one, which is how I ended up here about seven years ago.
I fell for the people first, then the art, then the whole spirit of the thing. Around the same time I noticed the community here could be better connected, and that we could open up access to people and knowledge from abroad.
The turning point was my meeting with Marc Noelanders. That talk reopened the door to the EBA and led to a partnership that lets people here take part in the European bonsai world.
That's how the Israel Bonsai Collective started.
I'm the secretary. All of it is volunteer work, including whatever I put in to push things along. My part isn't shaping trees. It's building the community, getting people talking, and starting things that strengthen bonsai in Israel.
One thing matters to me here. The Collective runs entirely on volunteers. Nobody takes a salary, there's no profit, and we don't charge dues right now. It all goes toward growing the bonsai community in Israel.
A community holds together when people actually show up and stay open with each other. The Collective isn't mine. It belongs to anyone who loves bonsai and wants to see it keep growing here.
But you asked, so here I am. Nice to meet you.