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Sabbath lamp

(Shabbat lights)

Yad

A lamp to be lit at the start of the Sabbath.

Notes

Sabbath lamps can take different shapes: two candlesticks with their candles; a quadruple holder resting on the table in Poland; a hanging oil lamp in the shape of a star, also called “Judenstern”. The oldest Judenstern is from Erfurt, Germany. Judensterne were common in Rhine countries.

Video

How to light Shabbat Candles

Translations

  • Hebrewנרות שבת
  • GermanSchabbat-Lampe
  • RussianСубботний подсвечник
  • FrenchLampe de Sabbat
  • DutchSjabbatlamp
  • ItalianLampada sabbatica
  • CzechSobotní svícen
  • HungarianSzombati lámpás
  • SpanishLámpara de shabat
  • GreekΛυχνία του Σαμπάτ
  • PolishLampa szabatowa
  • Arabicمصباح السبت
  • Yiddishשבת־ליכט
  • LadinoLampa de Shabat

Bibliography

Blumberg, Adi, Hanging Sabbath Lamps. Jerusalem: The Adi Foundation, 2001.

Dudová, Jaroslava. “Sabbatlampen aus Messingguss.” Judaica Bohemiae, vol. IX, no. 2, 1973, pp. 72-84.

Fraiman, Susan. The Sabbath Lamp—Development of the Implements and Customs for Lighting the Sabbath Lights Among the Jews of Ashkenaz. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, PhD Dissertation, 2013.

Fraiman, Susan. Lights of Sabbath: Rimma Bobova’s Candlestick Collection. Ed. Ilia Rodov, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2017.

Goldman-Ida, Batsheva. “The Hasidic Sabbath Lamp.” Hasidic Art and the Kabbalah, Leiden: Brill, 2018, pp. 194-231.

Lau, Benny. “The Light of Shabbat: from Vessel to Essence.” Orim: ha-Or ba-Sifrut, ba-Hagut uva-Omanut [Lights: In Literature, Art, and Jewish Thought], ed. Emily D. Bilski et al., Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2005, pp. 130-9.

Sabar, Shalom. “Shabbath Tamid – Nerot Shabbath Chashmelayim: Toldoteyiha shel Masoret ‘Amamit be-Ra’ei ha-Modernizatsia [Eternal Sabbath – Electric Sabbath Candles and the History of a Folk Tradition in Light of Modernity].” Ha-Machlakah Ha-Etnografit shel Ha-Muzei’on shel Ha-Achshaw [The Ethnographic Department of the Museum of the Contemporary], ed. Lea Mauas and Diego Rotman, Jerusalem: Ha’Arat Shulayim and The Underground Academy Press, 2017, pp. 106-25.

Sabar, Shalom. “‘The Eternal Sabbath’ Electric Sabbath Candles: The History of a Folk Tradition from a Modernist Perspective.” Eds. Lea Mauas, Michelle MacQueen, and Diego Rotman, Possession and Dispossession: Performing Jewish Ethnography in Jerusalem. Berlin, de Gruyter, 2022, pp. 162-194.

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