MENORA

The Menorah, candelabrum, featured on this stamp is surrounded by the emblems of the twelve tribes of Israel. The depiction of the Menorah is based on the one appearing on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

The Menorah is the only authentically Jerusalem symbol that has come down to us from ancient times. (The shape known as the Star of David is found among many cultures.)

The Menorah was used in the Tabernacle (Ex. 25:31-40). Antiochus took it away from the Second Temple built by Nehemiah (I Maccabees 1:23), but Judas Maccabeus ordered a new one to be installed. Later, there was a seven-branched candelabrum in Herod's Temple, which was carried away in 70 CE, as shown on the Arch of Titus, and brought by Jewish slaves to Rome, together with the rest of the booty from the Jerusalem Temple.

Before the destruction of the Temple, the Menorah was never reproduced in graphic art and its great popularity begins at the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century. Symbolic candlesticks are nowhere to be found in the numerous ossuaries which originated in this era. Nor do they appear on tombs, which, in this early period, carried no inscriptions nor other indications. The candelabrum was only employed on two coins of Antigonus Mattathias (40-37 BCE), though not as a symbol but as an expression of his dignity as High Priest.

Eventually, the candelabrum became the favorite symbol in Israelite and European catacombs, on tombs, lamps, glassware and as ornaments, in synagogues after the 2nd century in Palestine. The candelabrum often figures in illuminated Bible manuscripts. On none of the existing reproductions, however, does the Menorah appear in the shape perpetuated on the Arch of Titus. The hexagonal or octagonal base, whose lateral facets are ornamented with tritons, is of Greco-Roman origin and must have been added by Herod, whereas the superior portion conforms to old Jewish tradition. Everywhere else the base is shown as a kind of tripod.

The origin of the symbol is taken to be a plant or tree and suitable examples have been found in the Land of Israel.