A Purim costume of historic proportions
Handmade cowboy outfit survives three generations of same family; 'it's a lot more fun to make a costume,' says Eli Halfon, whose son now wears it.
Parents these days rush out to spend hundreds of shekels on Purim costumes that will surely be passé by the time the holiday comes around again in a year's time.
But the costume sewn 56 years ago by Grandma Sara, on the other hand, has already been handed down through three generations of the Halfon family.
When Yosef Halfon was six months old, in the late 1950s, his mother, Sara, sewed him a cowboy costume comprising pants and a shirt she embroidered herself and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The black-and-white photograph of little Yosef was preserved in the family album, and the cowboy costume was put away for safekeeping in Sara's home.
The years went by, Yosef grew up and married, and his son, Eliyahu (Eli), was born 31 years ago. When Purim came around, and Eli was eight months old, Grandma Sara fished out the costume she had made for her son and dressed her grandson in it.
And the chain continues: Eli, the grandson of Grandma Sara, now 80, became a father himself some four and a half years ago. He named his son Yosef, after his father. When little Yosef was six months old, the old costume was again fished out of storage, this time for Sara's great-grandson – Yosef's grandson and Eli's son.
Eli submitted the three photographs to Yedioth Ahronot's Facebook page, as entries in its Costume of the Country competition.
"It's very moving to see three generations in a costume made by Grandma Sara," Eli said. "Today, everyone buys costumes at a store. It was a lot more fun in the past, when people used to make costumes at home."
