Chanukah lamps on view at the Jewish Museum in New York

Chanukah lamp, mid-nineteenth century, probably Russian Empire, cast lead
The Jewish Museum, NY

Located on New York City’s Museum Mile, the Jewish Museum is a museum at the intersection of art and Jewish culture for people of all backgrounds. Founded in 1904, the Museum was the first institution of its kind in the United States and one of the oldest Jewish museums in the world.

The Museum maintains a unique collection of nearly 30 000 works of art, ceremonial objects, and media reflecting the global Jewish experience over more than 4 000 years.

The Jewish Museum is presenting Accumulations: Hanukkah Lamps, featuring over 80 Chanukah lamps from North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, ranging in date from the Renaissance to the present. 

The Jewish Museum’s collection of Chanukah lamps is the largest and finest in the world at nearly 1 050 pieces, and was amassed over the 115 years of the museum’s existence.

The chanukiahs are made of such materials as silver, copper, steel, tin, pewter, lead, glass, wood, clay, aluminum, concrete, and silicone. Differences in their materials and styles reveal rich details of the lives of Jews throughout the world over the course of six hundred years.

One of seven sections that make up the Jewish Museum’s third floor collection exhibition, Scenes from the Collection, Accumulations spotlights an aspect of museum collecting: the accumulation of multiple examples of a given work or similar works.

Chanukah is observed this year beginning at sundown on Sunday, December 22, concluding at sundown on Monday, December 30.

To read the editor’s column for December/January click here

To read or download the December/January issue of the Chronicle in PDF click  here

To read the most read article of the November issue, click here

Portal to the Jewish Community: to see a list of all the Jewish organisations in Cape Town with links to their websites, click here

Featured organisation of the month: The Jewish Community Services’ (JCS) activities are centered on relief for the poor and distressed in the Jewish community. They provide a full range of preventative, educative and supportive counselling, statutory services as well as material relief. Visit http://www.jcs.org.za  for more.

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