New York City, New York Hanukkah has produced two of the best known iconic symbols in Judaism: the Menorah and the Dreidel. Collectors of menorahs and dreidels can be found throughout the world. Not surprisingly, the best and most famous collection of each can be found in New York City. One, the Safran Dreidel Collection, is the result of the dedication of Rabbi Eliyahu … [Read more...]
WORLD’S OLDEST HANUKKAH MENORAH
Brooklyn, New York The menorah is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people. Menorahs have been around since the time of the Exodus, and were probably used as an Israelite icon long before the Star of David. Essentially a seven-branched candelabrum, a menorah was first mentioned and fully described in chapter five of the Book of Exodus … [Read more...]
WORLD’S LARGEST PERMANENT MENORAH
Manado, Indonesia When one imagines the world’s largest, permanent free-standing Menorah, naturally one thinks of… Indonesia? That’s right. The biggest permanent Menorah in existence is not in Israel, America or Europe; it is, in fact, located in the world’s most populous Muslim country. The city of Manado, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, is home to a number of … [Read more...]
BUDAPEST FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS
Budapest, Hungary Of all of the Jewish peoples residing in Europe during the long years of the Diaspora, none have had quite so eventful a history as the Jews of Hungary. Located at the crossroads of many empires, peoples and religions, no other group of Jews suffered as much virtually continuous persecution throughout their history. By the same token, no other group of … [Read more...]
ISRAEL MUSEUM & THE SHRINE OF THE BOOK
Jerusalem, Israel The Israel Museum is the national museum of the State of Israel and the greatest Jewish Museum in the world. A sprawling world-class complex, no other museum in the entire Middle East with the possible exception of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo boasts so large or diverse a collection as the Israel Museum. Designed to capture the immense, grandiose history … [Read more...]
MUSEUMS OF TEL AVIV
Tel Aviv, Israel The city of Tel Aviv is the cultural capital of Israel and, with the possible exception of New York City, Judaism in general. Tel Aviv is the heart of everything secular in Israel, from commerce to recreation to sports to the performing arts. Boasting more than sixty museums, Tel Aviv has among the highest number of museums per capita in the world, … [Read more...]
NATIONAL LIBRARY
St. Petersburg, Russia Tucked away in the massive collection of the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg is an unassuming book of priceless importance to the Jewish community: the Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible in the world. The Leningrad Codex, which achieved its status after portions of the Aleppo Codex were lost in the mid-20th … [Read more...]
EL GHRIBA SYNAGOGUE & TORAH
Djerba, Tunisia The extremely ancient Jewish community of Tunisia is one of the oldest Israelite colonies outside of the Eastern Mediterranean region. In fact, other than the Israelites of Palestine, Egypt and Mesopotamia, it may be the world’s oldest Jewish community. If this is indeed the case, than it would also be among the oldest continuous Jewish population in the … [Read more...]
OLYMPIC MASSACRE MEMORIAL
Munich, Germany Twenty-seven years after the downfall of Adolf Hitler and the end of the Holocaust, the Jews of Israel made a symbolic return to Germany in the form of the Israeli Olympic team. This act not only represented the courage and resilience of the Jewish spirit, it also represented the first tentative moments of reconciliation between the Jews and Germans. … [Read more...]
MODERN JERUSALEM
Jerusalem, Israel Modern Jerusalem is a sprawling metropolis with three-quarters of a million people, dwarfing the city built in ancient times. Jerusalem is also the epicenter of two millenia of religious tension and conflict between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the nineteen centuries since the end of the Great Revolt, Jerusalem has changed hands more than a dozen … [Read more...]