Teed Off

delivered September 12, 2014

A homonym, meaning a word that sounds that same that has multiple meanings.

So what are the homonyms for tea?

A tee in golf is what you place the ball upon before you swing.  Some of you may have done that better than others this afternoon.

A “t” is a letter in the alphabet, and a versatile one at that.  Think about how often you could have a conversation without using the word “the” for example.

And then there is tea, the drink of many varieties, that is consumed both hot and cold and is a huge part of Jewish culinary culture.

How many of your grandparents talked about having a “nice glass tea.”  

So in speaking about Teed Off in relation to our Play and Pray Golf Tournament, I have chosen to share with you the story of the mighty tea leaf and Israel’s foremost purveyor of tea, Wissotzky Tea.

With a building in Tel Aviv known as Tea House, the company was founded in 1849 in Moscow by Kalonimus Wolf Wissotzky. Born to a poor family, Wissotzky recognized the potential in the trading of tea.  Today it is one of the oldest tea companies in the world. In its first many years, Wissotzky Tea gained devoted customers all over the Russian Empire. By 1904 the company extended its activities to New York, Canada, and even Germany. In 1907 Wissotzky established the Anglo-Asiatic company with its head offices in London, managed by the Ahad Ha'Am, the renowned Jewish writer and philosopher. The company also acquired tea plantations in both India and Ceylon, the present day Sri Lanka.

In the first two decades of the 20th century, Wissotzky Tea Company was the largest tea company in the world. Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution all private businesses in the Russian empire were immediately nationalized by the government.  After the revolution, the company gradually ceased its operations in Russia and the Wissotzky family emigrated to the U.S and Europe, opening branches in Italy, Danzig, Poland, and additional European countries.

Wissotzky Tea Company activities centered in London as its headquarters where it was managed by Boris Lourie.  Its Polish branch was run by Solomon Seidler, a tea specialist and scion of the Wissotzky family. Due to the vast Jewish emigration from Russia, the Polish facility catered the demand for the tea they were accustomed to back home.

By 1936 Simon Seidler, the son of Solomon Seidler, sensed the impending danger of the war and left Poland for Palestine. There he established the Wissotzky brand to establish a business relationship with Her Majesties' Mandate.  His company began selling tea to the British soldiers located in Palestine. Simon quickly built a packing facility and gradually built the company's range of products.

In the following years, many of the family perished in the Holocaust and the company lost its holdings in Europe. In 1945, Boris Lourie married Anna Wissotzky, and they had two sons, Serie Lourie (born 1946) and Michael Lourie (born 1948).


In 1957 Simon Seidler died and his wife Ida Seidler took over the family's tea business. Ida introduced a modern approach to manufacturing and marketing of the brand. The Wissotzky Tea Company today is headed by Shalom Seidler, a descendant of Simon Zeidler. The company's headquarters are located in Tel Aviv while production takes place at a new state of the art factory located in northern Israel; the company employs about 400 workers.

Today Wissotzky Tea is distributed worldwide.

All of Wissotzky's products are Non GMO, Non staple, processed and packaged by automated machinery. The company enjoys a 76% hold in the local market and exports its products worldwide.

And so if you ever wondered about tea from Israel, who owns the company, how it has evolved, and how it is entwined with the Jewish experience over the last 150 years, look no further than Wissotsky.  

And don’t forget to have a nice glass tea tonight.