Objects

Hanukkah lamp (hanukkiah)

The Hanukkiah from the collection of the District Museum in Tarnów is a type of standing lamp with a backplate. The triangular hanger at the top indicates that it could also be hung. The lamp is made of pressed, bent and soldered sheet metal. It is made of a rectangular container on four legs in the form of four lion's paws, riveted at the corners. It also has a high back wall made of double sheet metal, hollow inside.

On the front wall of the container is an embossed ornament of an intertwining tendril, forming six medallions – three outer circular ones with floral decoration (each with a different plant) and a central oblong field containing a convex inscription in Hebrew: "BEZALEL YERUSHALAYIM". The back wall is a screen decorated with an embossed relief scene depicting the Kohen Gadol surrounded by a celebrating crowd. The high priest lights a seven-branched candelabrum with one hand, and in the other he holds a censer with incense burned in the Jerusalem Temple. In later times, the reminiscence of incense was inhaled on Saturday evening, before the ceremony of Havdalah (the end of the Sabbath), and the spices were placed in besamim boxes. Their symbols were placed in oval fields on the front wall, on the sides of a long inscription in Hebrew: "(Your sons) lit candles in Your holy courtyards, and established eight days of Hanukkah" (this is a fragment of the blessing given during the holiday of Hanukkah).

A removable strip is mounted on the top of the container (mounted on the left side with a vertical pin in a sleeve soldered to the outside of the shorter side). It is made up of a row of eight flat discs that act as bobeches for short sleeves soldered on each of them. On the right side is a removable shammes (Yiddish: "servant", i.e. an additional candle used to light the other eight candles), with a deeper bobeche, embedded in the right sleeve soldered to the container, simultaneously fastening the strip with sleeves. On the side of the tank, on the side with the shammes, at its upper edge there is a punched hallmark: "METAL".

Hanukkah is the eight-day Festival of Lights, commemorating the victory of Judah Maccabee's insurgents over the Syrian army in 165 BC. After the Temple in Jerusalem had been cleansed of pagan worship and the altar had been rededicated, only one vessel containing the ritual oil used to light the tabernacle was found. According to tradition, this ritual oil was sufficient, by a miracle, for eight days, until a new batch was produced (M. Siemieński, Księga świąt i obyczajów żydowskich, Warsaw 1993, pp. 73–74).

During Hanukkah, one more candle is lit each day in an eight-branched candelabrum called a hanukkiah, which is placed in the windows or in front of the doors of Jewish homes. The candles are lit by the eldest male in the family. During the holiday, one should not work or even study Torah. Fasting is also forbidden (A. Unterman, Żydzi. Wiara i życie, Łódź 1989, pp. 223–225).

The Hanukkah lamp was purchased in 1979 in an antique shop "Desa" – Works of Art and Antiques at 10 Mikołajska Street. It was made in the 1920s at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Its original origin is unknown.

Barbara Bułdys

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Information about the object
Author / creator
Akademia Sztuk Pięknych i Wzornictwa Besaleela (Jerozolima; 1906-)
Object type
handicrafts
Time of creation / dating
1st half of the 20th century
Place of creation
Jerusalem (Israel)
Technique
embossing
soldering
cutting
riveting
silver-coating
Keywords
Copyrights status
the object is not protected by copyright law
Owner
Museum of Tarnów Land
Identification number
MT.IV.1384