Obj. ID: 38541
Sacred and Ritual Objects Hanukkah lamp, Tetuan, circa 1900
The following description was prepared by William Gross: The festival of Chanukah is celebrated in the winter period around December and commemorates a Biblical story in which the Jews of the Land of Israel rebel against the Greek occupiers. They reclaim the desecrated Holy Temple in Jerusalem and, miraculously, the small amount of pure oil remaining is enough to keep the Temple light going for eight days. Lamps with eight burners are lit during this holiday, both in the synagogue and at home. Through the centuries, such lamps have taken a wide variety of forms.
Almost all Chanukah lamps made in Morocco are either of artisan worked sheet brass or of sand cast brass. The use of cast columns in addition to cut and pierced brass sheet identifies this object as from Tetuan, of which there are many examples in collections around the world. The presentation of the menorah in the center, the cast pillars, and the birds, also seen in Tetuan Ketubot, and are charactaristics of a Tetuan style. With few exceptions, this style of lamp has been found to be of exactly the same dimensions in all collections. It was apparently produced by one workshop using a stencil form producing the same overall shape and pierced openings for each object. The inscriptions and surface decoration vary slightly from piece to piece. There is another example of a particularly elegant and sophisticated design of a Tetuan lamp in the Gross Family Collection, 010.002.052.
Inscription: The seven lamps shall give light in front of the candlestick (Numbers 8:2) Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out (Deuteronomy 28:6)