Take Action – Get Involved!
Join our dedicated Facebook group to add to the conversation.
Share your favorite BBYO memory here by recording a short video with CamFlare on your phone or computer.
Complete our survey to help us capture each chapter’s history and ultimately create an alumni directory (you get to choose if your info is included).
Contact jessica@djhs.org to discuss loaning or donating artifacts to the archive, or to sign up to record an oral history.
Contact our main office at info@djhs.org or 972-239-7120 for more information about other areas of the event.
Thank you for your interest in attending “Walk Down Memory Lane: A BBYO Party for the Ages,” honoring and documenting the memories and legacy of the Dallas-Fort Worth B’nai B’rith Youth Organization.
Soon, there will be a variety sponsorship and ticket levels, as well as advertising and underwriting opportunites. As we finalize our sponsorship packet, we encourage you to join our dedicated Facebook group to add to the conversation.
AND – share your favorite BBYO memory here by recording a short video with CamFlare on your phone or computer.
Why sponsor? Your sponsorship will support our ongoing mission to preserve the history of Jews in Dallas, and you and your guests have the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals and businesses at this inspiring and entertaining event.
Where does your money go? All donations from the event support the preservation of written, visual and audible materials that document the history of Jews in Dallas, the ongoing and historical contributions made to the Dallas community, along with programs and exhibits which help connect present and future generations with Jewish Dallas.
This year, your contributions go even farther as we prepare to expand our archival vault. Thank you for participating and making our dream of serving you better come true.
Stay tuned! We’ll share prizes as it gets closer to the event.
Raffle tickets are $25 each, or 5 tickets for $100.
Honoring Your Memories – Preserving Your Legacy.
Across multiple generations, BBYO in the Dallas–Fort Worth area played a defining role in shaping generations of Jewish teens, offering far more than a social outlet—it provided identity, leadership, and belonging. In the postwar years, as Jewish families established deeper roots in North Texas, BBYO chapters became spaces where teens could explore what it meant to be Jewish in a region where they were often a small minority. Through AZA and BBG, members developed leadership skills by running their own chapters, planning programs, and organizing regional conventions, fostering confidence and independence at a young age.
By the 1960s–1980s, BBYO had become a central hub of teen life, creating tight-knit communities that often extended across city lines between Dallas and Fort Worth. Friendships formed at chapter meetings, dances, and service projects frequently lasted a lifetime. The organization also instilled a strong sense of responsibility—to community, to Jewish continuity, and to one another—through philanthropy and service initiatives.
Into the 1990s, even as suburban shifts and changing demographics reshaped participation, BBYO remained a meaningful anchor. It continued to cultivate leadership, Jewish pride, and social connection, leaving a lasting imprint not only on individual members, but on the broader fabric of Jewish communal life in North Texas.
As the Story Keepers of the Dallas Jewish Community, and wider region, we are capturing, honoring, and preserving the memories encompassed in the legacy of BBYO. If you were in BBYO, you are part of that story – make your voice heard.
We encourage you to join our dedicated Facebook group to add to the conversation.
Share your favorite BBYO memory here by recording a short video with CamFlare on your phone or computer.
Complete our survey to help us capture each chapter’s history and ultimately create an alumni directory (you get to choose if your info is included).
We are also seeking more BBYO artifacts from all chapters and events. Contact jessica@djhs.org to dicuss.
The Dallas Jewish Historical Society became a reality over five decades ago.
Watching the demolition of Temple Emanu-El’s early South Dallas building, a concerned group of onlookers, including Ginger Chesnick Jacobs and Ruth Brown Kahn, became acutely aware of the importance of saving local Jewish history. That moment triggered the inspiration for the establishment of the Dallas Jewish Archives, a committee of the Jewish Community Center (JCC), in 1970, which evolved into the Dallas Jewish Historical Society (DJHS), dedicated to education on and preservation of Dallas Jewish history. With its mission of “preserving the precious past as a living legacy for our community,” the agency is the only one that collects, preserves, and records the history of the entire Greater Dallas Jewish Community.
Within the walls of our Archive are a plethora of documents, photographs, and objects from early Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, families and individuals woven into the fabric of Dallas history. Currently located in the JCC, the DJHS features a climate-controlled vault, allowing for research under the highest archival standards. Since its founding, the DJHS has served as a repository for many agencies in the Jewish Dallas community, with the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas and the Jewish Community Center (JCC) at the forefront. In addition to many treasured artifacts, Dallas Jewish Historical Society continues to expand its collection of oral histories, having gathered nearly 700 personal interviews with members of our Jewish community since 1971.
From Downtown to South Dallas, the Cedars to Goose Valley, Deep Ellum to North Dallas and beyond, Jews have influenced the formation of Dallas. From the long-standing congregations of Temple Emanu-El, Shearith Israel, and Tiferet Israel to the newer houses of worship, and those long since faded into obscurity—Agudas Achim and Anshe Sphard among them—DJHS stands to preserve their past and their future in history. The DJHS safeguards not only our history, but also information on our impact locally, nationally, and internationally.
Today, the Dallas Jewish Historical Society is a partner agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas and is primarily supported by membership contributions.
Our Vision: To help connect present and future generations with Jewish Dallas
Our Mission: To preserve and protect collections of written, visual and audible materials that document the history of the Dallas Jewish community, to make these materials available to the public and researchers, and to keep the past as a living legacy for our community
What is the Dallas Jewish Historical Society?
- DJHS is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
- We acquire and preserve personal papers, organizational records, photographs, and memorabilia documenting Dallas Jewish community history.
- We serve as an educational research center for historians, writers, students, and genealogists.
- We provide an Annual Lecture series, workshops, and other community programming.
- We record and make available the oral history interviews of individuals and families in the Dallas Jewish community.
- We present exhibits on various aspects of Dallas Jewish community history.
- We are a community partner of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas.
How are your memberships and donations utilized?
Below are pictures of some of the items contained in our archive, and below are examples of how monies raised benefit programs and preservation duties at the Dallas Jewish Historical Society.
- A gift of $25 provides preservation for one rare book in the DJHS collection
- A gift of $35 covers cost of one set of Preservation 101 workshop materials
- A gift of $50 provides 100 acid-free archival quality file folders
- A gift of $100 provides 10 acid-free archival quality document storage boxes
- A gift of $150 covers the cost of producing and preserving one Oral History interview
