Most Jewish Menorah lamps from Mediterranean countries are fuelled by olive or other vegetable oils.Ĭandles have been increasingly popular since the seventeenth century in Northern Europe and are now the most common form of lighting, although some modern makers have chosen to return to oil.
MY MENORAH CANDLES AS SEEN FROM OUTSIDE MY WINDOW SERIES
They also survive from almost every period, and collectors have no difficulty finding examples from the late Renaissance – the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries – and gradually purchasing a series including specimens of each type dating from then until the present day.Ĭontemporary artists are still producing interesting pieces. When it is not in use, the Jewish Menorah is often kept on display in the home, so it is a familiar object that has acquired considerable symbolic importance.Ĭollectors are perhaps most attracted, however, by the sheer variety of styles available from almost every region in Europe and Asia, Jewish Menorah lamps are made in materials as varied as silver, brass, bronze, copper, pewter, ceramics and glass. The Hanukkah Jewish Menorah lamp is favorite genre among collectors for a number of reasons. The candelabra are usually lit in the window, so that they can be seen from outside. Most families then sing a hymn of thanks for the struggles of liberation fought by Jews throughout their history. There follows a brief prayer as the Jewish Menorah’s are lit. Everyone stands holding the servant light (called a Shammes or Shamosh by Ashkenazi Jewish, or a Shammash by Sephardics), while blessing over the festival and the lights are recited. In most familiar each person has his or her own Jewish Menorah to light. There is a brief but moving ceremony for lighting the Jewish Menorah, which is called a “Menorah” (lamp) or in Modern Hebrew a Hanukkkiya. A ninth flame is set slightly apart from the others and is used to light them. A single light is lit on the first night, and another added each evening until all eight are burning. The main activities are the exchanging of gifts and the kindling of the candelabra with eight lights both in the synagogue and in the home after nightfall on each evening. The idea that the home is a sanctuary, and that it survives hard times unscathed, its crucial to this festival.
It lasts eight days because the single cruse of consecrated oil that they found was miraculously sufficient to light the large Temple candelabrum for eight days, until more special oil could be prepared by the persists. The beginning of the feast marks the day the victorious Maccabees entered the cleansed Temple for the rededication – which is the meaning of the word Hanukkah. It commemorates the victory of the oppressed Judaeans, under their leader Judas Maccabeus, over the Greeks who had conquered the Jewish homeland and had set up a pagan cult in the Temple of Jerusalem. Hanukkah is a mid-winter-festival of warmth and light, celebrating the rededication of the home environment at the darkest time of the year.
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