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The President's Menorah

JUDY OPPENHEIMER
Special to The Jewish News

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here's nothing other-worldly
about Zachary Oxman's
menorot. They're made of
heavy stuff, bronze; they're
mechanically sound, unyielding, rooted
to their base; built to last, products of
good solid workmanship.

Judy Oppenheimer is the senior editor
of Moment magazine, in Washington,
D.C.

"The Celebration of Family" a bronze menorah by Zachary Oxman was displayed at
the White House uring the 1966 holiday season. A similar menorah, 'A Festival of
Light," is in the White House Collection of American Crafts. Oxman's work is
available locally at Tradition! Tradition!, Southfield.

But the more you stare at them, the
more amazing, even magical, they
seem. The figures leaping up to the sky;
the one in the middle, clicking his
heels; the small boy tethered to the
earth only by his mother's hand, the lit-
tle girl being thrown into the air by her
father. The rollicking Chasids; stomp-
ing with abandon, transported by joy.
Soaring metal? Euphoric bronze?

How can this be?
Mr. Oxman, 29, shrugs, smiling, a
little embarrassed. Maybe all that
anatomy he studied has something to
do with it. Or maybe the engineering
courses at Carnegie Mellon. Not that
he took any of those himself— but he
was around them, his roommate stud-
ied, maybe he picked it up by osmosis.
But he knows, too, there is some-

thing else going on here, beyond ana* ►
my, beyond science.
"Almost all my work has this motion
and emotion to it," admits Mr.
Oxman, whose menorot have been on
seasonal display at the White House
and are part of the White House
Collection of American Crafts. "I try to
strike a chord. I want someone to look
at the work and it moves you, it grabs
you.
And how does he accomplish this? "I
can see things in my head, sort of three
dimensionally. And when I get an idea,

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