On Nov. 14, Canada Post revealed a brand-new holiday stamp depicting an ornate Hanukkah menorah rescued from the Holocaust. The next day, 55,000 postal workers went on strike. The work stoppage ended just last week, meaning the landmark stamps–which depict a rare piece of actual Judaica rescued from the Nazis–can be used to celebrate the festival of lights, which begins Wednesday Dec. 25.
The stamp’s design is the result of a two-year-long collaboration with Rabbi Lisa Gruschow of Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom in Montreal and her volunteer curators at the shul’s small Jewish museum. They were thrilled that the post office wanted to spotlight an actual piece of Jewish ritual history, rather than stick to the stylized graphics used during the previous six years’ stamp editions.
The silver-plated hanukkiah, featuring a peacock, was likely produced in the 1800s in Poland. The artifact made its way to Austria, where it somehow survived Kristallnacht on Nov. 9, 1938. Although traces of its owners have long been lost, the Allies wound up rescuing the holiday centrepiece from Nazi storerooms after the war. The piece is part of a larger collection which eventually landed in Canada—specifically at Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom’s in-house Aron Museum in Westmount, Que.
On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, host Ellin Bessner sees the hanukkiah and the stamp in person—and gets the backstory from Rabbi Gruschow, and museum committee volunteers Louis Charbonneau and Monika Simon.
Related links
- Read more about the 2024 stamp
- Why the small Quebec town called Disraeli loves cancelling your Hanukkah mail, in The CJN.
- How Israel’s postal service got the stag logo, from Treasure Trove’s David Matlow, in The CJN.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Dov Beck-Levine
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