Binyamin (Ben) Heinemann // BP Print Group

I was born in Washington Heights, NY, the oldest of 11 children. Both of my parents’ families are originally from Germany. When the persecution of Jews in Germany began, my father’s family moved to England, where he was born, and they stayed there for 11 years while the war was going on. When they moved to America, they came to Washington Heights. My mother grew up in Baltimore. Her parents came to America before the war. My maternal grandparents, Kurt and Lisel Hess, were very instrumental in building the Baltimore community; my grandmother was the primary teacher at the Bais Yaakov of Baltimore for many, many years.
“My father, Reb Naftali Heinemann, was an electrical engineer. He did a lot of interesting things, including working on projects for the United States Army. They created the first form of night vision goggles, which were mounted on tanks and guns to let soldiers see through the thick of the night. They worked under many different names, but it was the same group who worked on every project. I remember when he brought home the night vision machine for me and my siblings to see. I looked into the forest in the middle of the night, and I could see all of the squirrels in the trees. I looked at the walls in my house and could see how well they were insulated, because the mechanics were based on heat recognition.
“I didn’t go to Breuer’s (Washington Heights’ Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch) because I missed the age deadline for kindergarten that year, so they didn’t allow me to start, and then we moved to Monsey. I went to Yeshivas Bais Dovid, Yeshiva of Spring Valley, Mesivta Bais Shraga, Lakewood East in Eretz Yisrael, and BMG. As a bachur, I was not the best learner. I wasn’t really an entrepreneur, either; I didn’t start selling things out of my closet or anything like that. I was involved in Pirchei—I was the leader and helped with a lot of activities. However, I did get started on my graphics journey in my high school years.
“My father is graphically inclined, so he got me into graphics at a young age. He was on several boards of communal organizations, very involved in tzorchei tzibur, and he would do their graphics. I would help him print things for his shul and various projects he was involved in, and I picked up some of his skills.
“I created different types of posters and flyers for my schools. For Purim one year, one of the schools asked me to take their logo and enlarge it. I didn’t have a copy machine, so I sat with a ruler, measured out the logo and did it all by hand. I was the graphic artist for my eighth-grade yearbook and spearheaded the first 12th-grade yearbook as well, for high school. I was able to make some beautiful monograms.
“I was only doing drawings, but my father had a machine called a VariTyper. It was sort of a high-end typewriter that could create different fonts and layouts. He even had a Hebrew font made for the machine. We had another machine that we used in a darkroom to develop letters and headlines, but it is nothing compared to what we have today. Everything was done by hand, so if you wanted to make something in a semi-circle, you would have to hand cut each letter and spread it apart in order to make it look nice. Things were different then. Baruch Hashem, my father is alive and well and he now works with me.
“My main focus during my years at yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael and in BMG was to sit and learn; I didn’t do any graphics then.
“I got married in 1989; my wife, Penina, is from Flatbush. We moved straight to Lakewood, and I’ve been here ever since. When I first got married, I learned in kollel for a little bit. During that time, I started dabbling in graphics until it took over most of my day. My father had given me a computer and taught me CorelDraw, but I was mainly working in Word. I started making ads for people. My father had created his own Hebrew font, which I had at my disposal, and I was able to use a lot of his lettering in my ads and invitations. I learned how to master Word so that I could be as creative as possible. There weren’t that many graphic artists at the time, so a lot of people wanted to use me for their advertising. My ads were mainly local. I hired a woman to work for me, and she remained in the business for 19 years.
“When I first opened the business, there was a group of stores that tried to mail their ads to the community, but it wasn’t a centralized effort. After I designed several ads for them, I began to handle the mailings and would mail out an envelope with a few loose papers of ads for the local stores. At that time, the Lakewood mailing list had 1,200 names on it. Baruch Hashem, today it has closer to 20,000.
“Then a few people asked me to do some printing for invitations and small jobs, but I didn’t do any printing at the time, so I found an Italian printer who had a company, Astro Printing, not too far away from me. I would bring my things to him and he would print it. He was often very late, so I needed to sit on him just to get the jobs done. Though today it’s different, the printing industry had a reputation of not delivering on timelines—and it was based on the truth. The printer didn’t feel any pressure to get the job done on time. I learned how to run the presses so that I didn’t constantly face this issue of tardy printing dates. Sometimes he would let me run the presses myself.
“Once, I had to run 20,000 envelopes for Shalom Torah Centers. Envelopes are much harder to run than paper because of their thickness, but I was able to do it, and I was very proud of myself. I was sitting in the office, sweat dripping down my forehead, thinking that I must be getting close to the end of the printing process, when I realized I’d only made it to 2,000 out of 20,000.