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by Carolyn Feibel
How Museums Invent Us
In the 1930s, a Minneapolis Jewish housewife named Bessie Furman hired a carpenter and an electrician to create her Chanukah brainstorm: a chunky wooden Magen David illuminated by a bulbous Christmas light at each point of the star. It wasn’t the most elegant design, but it gave Jewish color to the holiday season, and she was able to sell enough of them to friends to pay her annual Hadassah pledge.