Collections
Pocket Watch owned by George Dzialynski, first known Jewish boy born in Florida, Jacksonville, 1857.
Keys to the Collection offers an inside peak at JMOF-FIU’s vast collections From the Collections of the Jewish Museum of Florida, originated by Marcia Jo Zerivitz, founding executive director.
As is the case for all museums, our limited amount of gallery space prevents us from showing visitors everything in our collection, which includes more than 100,000 artifacts, documents, photographs and ephemera.
This series provides the opportunity for a “behind the scenes look” at items in our collection, giving our audience from all over the world a chance to learn about some of our museum’s treasures.
Did you know that the first Jewish mayor of Sarasota, David Cohen, was also the former concertmaster of the Florida West Coast Symphony? Cohen, born in Philadelphia in 1910, was considered a child prodigy and started playing the violin at age 10. He gave his first professional performance at the age of 12. Though he won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in 1929, there were few jobs available for professional musicians during the Great Depression, so he abandoned his dream of a music career and went into business. He moved to Sarasota in 1948 and operated a candy and specialty shop. Cohen’s segue into politics began with his election as Sarasota City Commissioner in 1960, where he became a driving force behind the building of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall. He was elected Mayor of Sarasota in 1964 and became known as “Mr. Sarasota,” though he never gave up his love of the violin, playing every day of his life, until his death in 1989.
Morris “Pop” Segal started his taxi business in 1927 with a “fleet” of two cars – his 1926 Studebaker and 1924 Hupmobile. Thirty years later, he and his sons William, Stanley and Norton were the owners and operators of the Yellow Cab System in Greater Miami, with a stock of 300 cabs, 500 rent-a-cars and 100 limousines, rolling up more than 15 million miles a year. Born in Russia, Pop Segal immigrated to the U.S. in 1907 at age 16 and settled in Boston. He moved to Coral Gables in 1924, where got into the real estate “boom,” but when the market slumped, he moved to Miami Beach and embarked on his taxicab career, using his two family cars to transport people in Miami and the Gables. By 1929, he founded the Segal Safety Cab Company, one of the first taxi operations in the area and he later absorbed cab companies such as Radio, White Line, Red Top and Checker, and he created the Yellow Cab System. Morris “Pop” Segal passed away in 1973 at age 83, but his sons continued in the business, expanding to include subsidiaries of Greyhound, American Sightseeing Tours and American Bus Lines. To learn more about these pieces and to see more Keys to the Collection, please visit the page on our website: jewishmuseum.com. It’s also important to remember that the museum would not have its extensive collection if it weren’t for so many of you who have graciously donated your family’s memorabilia to be preserved and available for future generations. To add items about the past and current Florida Jewish experience to the museum’s collection, please contact the registrar at 786-972-3167.
f Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/JewishMuseumofFlorida to learn more about our latest Keys to the Collection. 10
TILES | Newsletter of the Jewish Museum of Florida – FIU | December 2013