Jewish Press of Tampa

Resale shop sells couple on giving new home to discarded menorahs




Abe and Carolyn Gutwaks of Palm Harbor have 141 menorahs in their collection.

Abe and Carolyn Gutwaks of Palm Harbor have 141 menorahs in their collection.

It began, as so many collections do, with one. Then another … and another … and at last count, Abe and Carolyn Gutwaks had 141 menorahs.

The Palm Harbor couple don’t light all of them on each of the eight nights of Hanukkah. That would require burning 6,204 candles each year. (Okay, a bit less than that given that a few of their menorahs are electric. Still …)

“When I first started collecting them, I lit ‘em all,” said Abe, 76, a retired CPA. “There may have been half a dozen or so that I lit.”

Now, though, they light only one, a different one every year. And they’ll put one of the electric ones in a window. But that doesn’t detract from the meaning of the other 139.

“I look at it as the holiday, as Hanukkah, basically lighting up the world,” he said. “It’s feelings of hope. … It’s not a religious thing; it’s more of a symbolism of what we’re all about, of lighting up and fixing the world.”

Carolyn, 75, a former legal assistant and a lapsed Catholic, added, “I see in it the joy of children. The lighting of candles and the expectation, the ‘What (gifts) am I going to get?’ It’s basically the same thing as when the Christmas lights go on, the kids can’t wait ‘til the presents are under the tree. To me, it’s the joy of a child, it’s the hope of the future.”

Close up of some of the menorahs the Gutwaks have acquired over the years, mostly from thrift stores. Photos by Barstad Communications

Close up of some of the menorahs the Gutwaks have acquired over the years, mostly from thrift stores. Photos by Barstad Communications

Abe met the former Carolyn Stevens when they were living in Chicago. “I was very young the first time I got married and very young when I got divorced,” she said. She had no children of her own and had been divorced for 25 years when she met Abe.

“We were introduced by one of Carolyn’s friends, an attorney” he said. “She was looking for an accountant and he was one of my clients and I was going through a divorce from my first wife.” He has three grown children, two daughters and a son, and six grandchildren.

Together they have Lucy, an exceedingly friendly Australian cattle dog, and Duke and Maxine, two cats who hide under the bed when guests visit.

Carolyn and Abe Gutwaks holding the menorah that Abe says was made from railroad spikes leading into Auschwitz. Lucy the dog is slightly visible at lower left.

Carolyn and Abe Gutwaks holding the menorah that Abe says was made from railroad spikes leading into Auschwitz. Lucy the dog is slightly visible at lower left.

Abe and Carolyn, married 26 years, left Chicago for Palm Harbor eight years ago, a year after he retired. “We got tired of shoveling snow,” she said. “Three years before we came down here there was a blizzard in Chicago. It took us three days to get the car out of the garage.”

They purchased their first menorah 30 years ago – “when we started living together, about four years before we got married,” Carolyn said.

Since they’d had their own homes, they had an excess of furniture and household goods, “so we were donating to ORT in Chicago,” Abe said. “In fact, after the war [World War II], ORT taught my mother cooking and sewing skills and she became a seamstress.”

ORT, founded in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1880, comes from …….. ………… ….., which translates to the Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades. It now is headquartered in London, England, and better known as the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training.

“We’d go every Sunday and donate stuff because we had duplicates of things and were downsizing to some extent,” Abe said, “and I got to know the people who worked there and I came in one morning and (the store clerk) said, ‘I’ve got this. Just came in. You interested in it?’ It was a menorah.

“So I said, ‘Sure. This is really nice,’ and we bought it. And a week later I came back and they remembered me.”

Carolyn interrupted the conversation. “I wasn’t Jewish,” she said, “and I said, ‘Okay, let’s get me involved in your religion so your family will accept me’ … I really only practice Judaism now,” although she never converted.

“Anyway,” Abe said, “after a few weeks or so, they started putting (menorahs) aside and holding them for me so when I came in they said, ‘We have a new menorah. Would you like it? If you like it you could buy it; otherwise we’re putting it out for the general public. … After the first few, we started a collection.”

And as long as each menorah was different from the ones the Gutwakses already had purchased from the thrift store, they’d buy it.

One especially prized menorah “was made from railroad spikes that led into Auschwitz,” Abe said.

Asked if they had other favorites, the couple answered emphatically, “We love them all.”

Once they moved to Florida, Carolyn said, the active pursuit of menorahs pretty much ceased “unless we see one in a resale store,” she said, “but it has to be different from all the other ones we have. Most of these are used. There are only a few that we got as gifts or bought new.”

What will become of them?

“I don’t know if my children or grandchildren are all that into menorahs,” Abe said. “I mean, I’ll give them the right of first refusal if they want any.”

And if they don’t?

“We will find a rabbinical college,” Carolyn said, “and make it a project for all of the students to clean and restore all of these menorahs and then either make it a private collection for that college or sell them to help finance more rabbinical students.”

“Or,” Abe added, “any Jewish charity that would appreciate the collection, or a museum that would use it as an exhibit or a fundraiser.”

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