Syosset business brings international wear



On Tuesday, October 23 at 5 p.m. the Syosset Woodbury Chamber of Commerce will continue its celebrations of 20 years connecting the business community with yet another ribbon-cutting ceremony and reception in 2018. Footwear brand and retailer Naot, located in Woodbury Village (in between Starbucks and Ben’s Kosher Deli) at 7965 Jericho Turnpike, opened in the fall of 2017. The company brings the community an intriguing mix of world history from the border of Israel and Palestine coinciding with its chief executives, the Lax family, longtime Syosset and Woodbury residents who decided their home was the best place for an innovative U.S. flagship store.

Naot means Oasis in Hebrew. The facility Naot footwear has long been produced in by generations of hardworking, skilled hands, Kibbutz Naot Mordechai in Israel’s Upper Galilee, began in the mid-20th century as a kibbutz — in Israel, a collective community based on agriculture, similar to a communal farm.

“During World War II, in 1942 a group of Czech people came to Israel and started the kibbutz. These were the original people who started making shoes — skilled trade shoemakers. They decided to continue that on the kibbutz, in their socialist way of living there. People lived, ate together and worked together and their children slept in baby houses. They saw the shoemaking was working so the operation turned into a factory so they started to sell the shoes throughout Israel,” Susan Lax said.

Stunning photos of the kibbutz farms and the modern Naot factories adorn the rear walls of the Woodbury flagship store, and the location is on the northern Israeli border near Lebanon and Syria, northwest of the Golan Heights. Over 1,000 Israelis work for Naot either directly or indirectly, and 1,000 Palestinians work for the brand in their own factories The two sides have been involved in manufacturing of Naot for over 50 years. The factory at the original kibbutz has workers with “every head covering” from Muslims and Jews to Christians, Ethiopians, Russians and Druze (a small Middle Eastern religious sect).

Steve Lax, chairman of the company, explains that part of the intrigue of the brand is that people don’t know how to pronounce Naot. “We are made in Israel so what is more beautiful in the desert than an oasis? Naot means beautiful too, as it’s also the root word for beauty in Hebrew. The name and the shoe has many different meanings. Every shoe is a joint venture and the shoes create jobs for Palestinians and Israelis,” he said.

Steve and Susan Lax call three places their home; Woodbury, New York City and Israel. The choice was there for them to open the Naot flagship store in Manhattan, but Syosset/Woodbury has been their main home for 22 years. Two of their three children attended the Syosset Central School District, first at Baylis Elementary and later graduating from Syosset High School. The Lax’s youngest daughter attended a Jewish day school, Solomon Schechter. They also have a company office 10 minutes away from Woodbury in Melville.

“This location in Woodbury Village was very convenient for us to keep an eye on the store for our flagship store for the United States, with 75 total stores worldwide. We were originally a sandal company and today we offer 1,200 different styles and colors of shoes. In our Woodbury store we rotate the displays although the catalog for the U.S. contains 700 varieties of shoes. Worldwide we offer 1,200 kinds of shoes and that’s too many to possibly display in a store the right way,” Lax said.

Susan Lax calls Naot “shoes of Peace” made in a part of the world often under scrutiny for political and religious conflicts.

Naot recently was announced as the “best design and comfort” winner for shoes in the United States and as “the best company in the shoe industry” by the Independent Retailers Organization. Naot shoes feature removable insoles. The brand has high value among professionals involved in physical therapy as Steve Lax said Naot is the number one shoe brand referred for people suffering from plantar fasciitis.

“The brand and company “imprint” on the shoes evolved in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s with the move towards comfort and the inclusion of quark latex, a basic element of the European brands of shoes at the time. Those companies were making quark sandals and the kibbutz people bagan making it in the early 1970’s. That became the huge hit in Israel and now 90% of people there know Naot,” he said. The biggest seller from Naot in Israel is its birkenstock look-alike sandal. Steve Lax said the challenge there is now informing the Israeli buying public about the many different styles and colors Naot is currently producing.

Some of the Naot customers come to Woodbury with a familiarity and their own history with the brand from Israel, and they’re pleased to learn of a store now open on Long Island. But the word-of-mouth and referral business is also a key for Naot. On an average October Tuesday afternoon, a customer drove down from her central Connecticut home straight to Woodbury to visit Naot’s flagship location. As an employee of the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester in northeast Westchester County, she’s an active, on-her feet individual throughout the evening hours. After a flare-up of her back, her physical therapist recommended her to try on Naot shoes.

The first time for a customer trying on a shoe from Naot is “the worst the shoe will ever feel” Steve Lax says. After that, the sole of the shoe takes on the shape and form of an individual’s foot because the heat and pressure work on its insides.

“Every day the heat and pressure will make the shoes into an orthotic for your feet. The inside adjusts for place you need more support for your body. If you walk around all day or night long, the correct shoe is more important than getting a foot massage or going to see a chiropractor. People come to us and get their needs met with so many different styles of footwear,” he said.

Susan Lax said bringing a Naot flagship into Woodbury will help the community understand the value of being comfortable and looking good while doing so, and adding happiness to a simple part of life such as putting on your shoes each day. The Lax’s (and their Syosset/Woodbury locale) first became involved with Naot when Steve Lax took the opportunity as the U.S. distributor, working from his condo in Woodbury. Naot is currently sold in over 4,000 retail locations in the U.S., but its start was in Syosset and Woodbury.

“We started selling Naot out of the condo, then we did that out of a home with a one-car garage in Syosset. Then we moved back to a Woodbury home and housed the brand in one of the expandable warehouses on Robbins Lane in Syosset (at Aerial Way). Then we moved into a facility in Farmingdale and eventually to Melville,” he said.

Five years ago the couple bought the worldwide Naot company and decided to preserve the operations at the original kibbutz during a time of political turmoil in Israel.

“We were only distributing wholesale in the U.S. at larger footwear stores — one of our beliefs before was that we never wanted to compete, as a sales location, with the independent retailers we have carrying the brand in their stores. But when we got 60 stores in Israel and 10 stores in Canada we looked into them and we wanted to reimagine the store locations. Here in Woodbury we have spent a great deal of time creating the store’s layout and images with our Naot brand telling its story. The story is told on our walls and the shoes are displayed. The concept was when you enter the Naot store, you should feel at home. And here we have found a gem of a store and location — it’s modern and classic put together,” Steve Lax explains.

As part of its one-year celebration in Woodbury, the Naot flagship store will be hosting a weeklong #NaotGivesBack Event. The company recently posted on Facebook, “for every pair of Naots tried on October 23-28 a pair will be donated to TheMid-Island Y Jewish Community Center’s Rudman Family Food Pantry. For every pair purchased two pairs will be donated.”

One response to “Syosset business brings international wear”

  1. Rhonda Olenick Gitnik says:

    Wow, this is SO exciting – I’ve been wearing NAOT for years and I’ve always gone to the NAOT store in the Gush when I’m in Israel. So nice to have a store in the US! We’re comin’ over from Aug. 3- Aug. 16 for your STEP IN TRY ON GIVE BACK event. My friend Joe Flaschner sent me an email. (We live in Hillcrest/Queens). HATSLACHA!!

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