This is a 1965, “Austin Stone,” menorah designed by Ellen Lord, and created by Austin Productions. The menorah features six children with raised hands for candle holders.
Made of a composite material, the menorah is made to look like the stones of the wall of Jerusalem. There are multiple types of menorahs designed by Ellen Lord that have children and look like stone. “Austin was founded in 1952 in Brooklyn, N.Y., as a museum reproduction company featuring selections from great art collections of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Asian, African and Contemporary sculpture.”
Forest Avenue High School, now James Madison, closed its doors in 1956, but some alumni include TV producer Aaron Spelling and Stanley Marcus of Neiman-Marcus. In 1983, the alumni made sure the school artifacts were archived at the Dallas Public Library, but at DJHS we house a small collection of artifacts from from individuals and families who attended.
Here we have the name tag of Hilda Cobbel, she wore it at the Forest Avenue High School class reunion of 1935. It includes her graduation photo and a button that says “Fight Forest Fight” in one of the school colors, Forest green.
Over her life, Hilda Cobbel was mentioned multiple times in the Texas Jewish Post, most notably for the JCC Purim Ball, where she was a Purim queen representing the Hadassah B & P Group in 1952.
Morton Rachofsky (1930-2019), a Dallas realtor among many other things, invented the 25-hour Xtraour Clock from the Circadian company which was most likely influenced by Sigmund Freud who used the 50 minute psychoanalytical hour.
The Chicago Tribune wrote about this clock selling at Neiman Marcus in 1990 for $82. At the DJHS we have one of the 25 hour clocks, still in its original box and encased in acrylic – a memento donated by Rachofsky’s estate.
At the DJHS archive, we have a kosher butcher knife, known as the chalif, it’s wielded by a shochet; the person that uses the knife to process the animal. The chalif must be handmade and kept exquisitely sharp. There are fewer than 10 kosher knife makers worldwide. The knife can be made of various steel types, and the handle made from a variety of woods and materials, but a kosher knife must be roughly two-thirds the size of the animal’s neck that it is killing. There are different knife sizes for different animals, this knife is about 12 inches long, lending itself to a lamb.
Here we have a framed photograph taken by Paul Robertson of the BBYO District 7 convention that was held at Huntington College June 5- 10, 1956 in Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama is now part of region #72, “Cotton States Region”, which includes Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. With 50 countries involved in the BBYO sorority and fraternities, and a total of 700 chapters worldwide, the BBYO has grown substantially since this photo was taken in 1956.
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