Its Items ‘Help Make Jewish Life Beautiful’ : Gift Shop Plays Special Role During Hanukkah

Holiday lights shine from the display window of the small Tustin store. Inside, seasonal music is playing while last-minute shoppers negotiate knots of excited children, looking for gifts, festive cards, traditional decorations and cookie cutters.

But at The Jewish Development Co., nearly everything--even the cookie cutters--celebrates Hanukkah, the eight-day Festival of Lights that ends today at sundown. For 10 weeks each year, Anne Rolbin’s gift shop turns into a “Hanukkah store.”

Last week, Rolbin and Rabbi Menahem Herman, of Congregation B’nai Israel, escorted seven of the synagogue’s Hebrew school students--11-year-olds, “the smallest non-destroying type,” one of the salespeople observed--on a tour of the small wonderland.

Holiday Blessings Chanted

On the sound system, young voices chanted the holiday blessings and older ones sang traditional songs in Hebrew and English, including one with a bouncy beat in which “menorah” rhymes with “hora,” the Israeli folk dance.

“You won’t hear that at Ralphs,” the rabbi told his charges, as he and Rolbin began their commentary on the shop’s contents. There are dozens of different Hanukkah tops, called dreidels, made of glass, plastic, metal and wood, one of which is inlaid with Hebrew characters of carved ivory. Non-Hanukkah items include 2,000 book titles, jewelry and ritual items.

“You can see around you all the things that help make Jewish life beautiful, not just gifts and presents,” Herman told the youngsters. “This is a real special opportunity. We’re lucky a store like this exists.”

More than anything else, the 6-year-old store has menorahs--the nine-branched candelabra that have become symbolic of the holiday--made in almost every conceivable style, material and design. Each year there are hundreds of menorahs, Rolbin said, adding, “I think we have the finest collection in Southern California.”

Priced at Up to $2,000

From antique to ultramodern, they range in price from about $10 to $2,000. By tradition, eight of the nine lights have to be on the same level plane. Each menorah sold at The Jewish Development Co. comes with a free box of Hanukkah candles, although a few are illuminated by electric bulbs or wicks dipped in oil.

“Just like the menorah in the Old Temple,” the rabbi said of the latter, where the first Festival of Lights took place in 165 BC.

Often, when the history of an object was explained to the students, they would respond with a chorus of “neat, neat.”

The menorahs in the Tustin shop are acrylic and ceramic, crystal, pewter, brass, gold, mosaic stone, carved wood and hammered silver. There are also miniatures made of silver filigree in Yemenite style, clay inset with ancient Roman glass, and even tiny antique brass spoons. Some are kinetic--one has removable metal triangles that revolve in the candleholders and can be lined up to form Jewish stars--and one has a music box in its base.

Many of the menorahs were made in Israel, and some are replicas of museum pieces on display at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles and the Jewish Museum in New York. Others are imported from India, or re-created in the style of the Jewish communities of Morocco and Iran.

‘Blend of Old and New’

Gesturing to one, Rolbin said: “It’s modern, but it’s a blend of old and new. We look for the artist who creates Judaic articles which are more than just utilitarian. I like them to be a little more artistic.”

The pride of the collection, featured on the cover of the store’s annual catalogue, is a limited edition called “The Golden Gate,” by Israeli sculptor Frank Meisler. It is sand-cast bronze on a marble base, trimmed with pewter and gold and silver plate. The piece depicts a gate of the Old City of Jerusalem, with the Hebrew words of a Hanukkah song in relief, and sells for $1,500. Two of the outer candleholders can be removed, turning it into a year-round, seven-branched Jewish candelabrum, called a hanukkiah.

“With luck, we sell one of these a year,” said Rolbin, who wears a button with the words “Happy Hanukkah” superimposed on a menorah.

There is one menorah in her store that is not for sale. That is a mounted sculpture at the rear of the shop, a black, tree-like menorah done by her husband, Cecil Rolbin, a Buena Park physician and amateur sculptor. It is called “Ma’alot,” and commemorates the occasion of a terrorist attack on an Israeli settlement. The Rolbins have three grown children, one of whom lives in Israel.

Store’s Name Symbolic

Rolbin says that the name of the gift shop, The Jewish Development Co., refers to her own personal and religious development and the development of the Jewish community. At one time, when the store first opened in the small shopping center, there were real estate offices on either side, and passers-by seeing the sign thought the store was a land company.

The store closes early on Friday and stays closed all day Saturday in observance of the Jewish Sabbath. Rolbin kept the shop open late the week before Hanukkah, but went back to 5:30 closings last week, she said, “because we have Hanukkah to go to ourselves.” At home, she said, her family lights “a nice little brass menorah.”

Oddly enough, Rolbin says she believes that the Jewish holiday has become too commercialized.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “I don’t like to see Hanukkah becoming the Jewish Christmas. It’s not the Jewish Christmas.”

But Rolbin’s customers have no complaints about how soon the Hanukkah displays go up, especially in years like this when the holiday comes well before Christmas. “People start asking in early October,” she said.

Christian Customers

Not all of her customers are Jewish, Rolbin said. “This year we’ve had a number of Christian families who’ve come in, saying they want to celebrate Hanukkah, too,” she said, buying menorahs and books explaining the holiday. Other Christians have come in to buy gifts for Jewish friends and co-workers.