The Modern Festival of Lights

Of all the glorious objects on display at the Jewish Museum in New York or resting in its storerooms, awaiting their turn in the limelight, my favorite happens to be a constellation of eight tiny, bowlegged chairs somewhat the worse for wear. Fashioned inexpensively out of lead and tin and bearing the dents of time and the scars of use, the chairs, when combined, turn into a Hanukkah lamp. Back in the late 1880s, in Belarus, whence they came, all anyone had to do was to arrange the chairs in a row; lift up their lids, or erstwhile cushions; pour in a glug of oil; affix a wick to the little hole in the center of each chair; light a match and, voilà, furniture that glowed in the dark, illuminating the Festival of Lights.