CIA Digital Output Center
International collaboration
Cleveland Institute of Art serves as printing, shipping hub for Israeli ketubah designer By Becky Raspe
A
rmed with a degree in architecture and an avid interest in art and design, Israeli artist Dalia Ben-Moshe has been designing ketubot, or Jewish marriage contracts, for over a decade now. First as wedding presents for friends and family that later developed into a hobby, Ben-Moshe designs about 80 ketubot a month under her business, Ketubata. Her designs are shipped throughout Europe and the United States. But a few years after she opened her business, she hit an inevitable snag: a couple an ocean away from her in Cleveland received a damaged ketubah with little to no time to spare before their wedding in 2017. “At that time, the business had been open for a few years and I would get a bit flustered about it,” Ben-Moshe says. “I used to send them through FedEx all over the world, and had them in batch orders coming from my house, which would be picked up by FedEx. In this situation, I had that customer in Cleveland who needed one printed within 48 hours. I emailed a few printers throughout the area, seeing if we could work together for my United States orders,” adding all of her European and Israeli orders are printed in Jerusalem. The printer Ben-Moshe ended up selecting was the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Digital Output Center, headed up by manager Josh Werling. The Digital Output Center, located on the CIA campus in Cleveland’s University Circle, was created in 2008 and mainly provides wide-format printing services using water-based pigment inks. It uses an archival printing process perfect for a family heirloom like a ketubah. “The professionalism was amazing, and (Werling) responded
28 Celebrations SPRING 2022
CIA Digital Output Center Josh Werling, manager of the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Digital Output Center, handles a ketubah designed by Israeli artist Dalia Ben-Moshe. Her designs are printed at the Digital Output Center and shipped all across the United States from Cleveland.
