In 1948, Gershom Scholem published his pathbreaking article on the Magen David in which he demonstrated that this ostensibly eternal symbol of Judaism only became such a symbol in modern times. What had originally been a magical image in various kabbalistic traditions was only adopted by Jews en masse in the nineteenth century. From there it made its way onto the Zionist flag, but, argues Scholem, only acquired real content when the Nazis made the Jews wear it on the road to destruction.
If the Magen David is a modern symbol masquerading as ancient, the seven-branch menorah, adopted by the new State of Israel as its official seal shortly after Scholem published his article, had the opposite career: its origins are in the Bible and it disappeared after the destruction of the Second Temple, only to resurface in various forms in the modern period. As a symbol of Judaism, it was always available but not always deployed.
Steven Fine has given us the most comprehensive history of the menorah in this erudite and sumptuously illustrated book. Indefatigable, Fine has seemingly found every reference to the menorah from late antique historians to modern novels. Who knew, for example, that Hemda ben Yehuda (the wife of Eliezer ben Yehuda) coined the term ḥanukiyah from an obscure Balkan usage to distinguish the seven-branch menorah from the eight-branch candelabra of the Hanukah holiday? Fine is a charming guide to this history, introducing his own adventures as an archaeologist in pursuit of the menorah, always alert to urban legends and learned frauds.
Fine's book revolves around the famous Arch of Titus in the Forum in Rome, which he has analyzed for fragments of color painting. The menorah of the arch has aroused controversy throughout the ages, since its base (differing from the three-legged base in Jewish texts) contains images of dragons. Was the image on the arch constructed by non-Jewish artisans to conform with Roman iconography or did the Jews themselves fail to be concerned about what might be construed as idolatrous images? No definitive answer is possible.
The history of the menorah and the other temple vessels and utensils is shrouded in mystery after the first century CE. Coins from the two Jewish revolts against Rome surprisingly lack any images of the menorah. Did this mean that Jews of this period did not ascribe any nationalist meaning or even religious centrality to the menorah? And what happened to these utensils after they were transported to Rome? Some traditions claim that the rabbis were able to view them there in the second century, while other traditions say that they were plundered by the Visigoths. Meanwhile, the Byzantine historian Procopius reported that the emperor Justinian sent them to a church in Jerusalem. In modern times, rumors circulated that they were variously buried in the Tiber River in Rome or hidden in the Lateran Church of St. John at the Vatican. Fine is properly skeptical of all these stories.
The Talmud three times forbids fashioning a seven-branch menorah, although not ḥanukiyot, which it seems Jews began to light publicly in synagogues only in the twelfth century. The late-sixteenth-century Sefer minhagim suggests that seven-branch menorahs may have already been countenanced, although they only began to appear in synagogues in the eighteenth century. How traditional Jews justified this violation of the talmudic prohibition is not clear from Fine's text.
However, it was with Reform Judaism with its edifices named temples that the menorah enjoyed a true renaissance, in both three- and two-dimensional representations. Many of these drew directly from the Arch of Titus menorah with its distinctive base. Increasingly, the figures from the arch were represented not as Romans (which is what they seem to be on the original) but as heroic Jews.
Ironically for an archaeologist of antiquity, Fine's story becomes the most interesting in the twentieth century. In the Zionist movement, the Bezalel School and Vladimir Jabotinsky's Jewish Legion embraced the menorah as a symbol of national renewal, with the base from the Arch of Titus. The arch, in turn, reentered Jewish history with the liberation of Rome in 1944, although it appears that the story of the Jewish Brigade marching triumphantly through the arch is a myth. (So presumably is the story that members of the brigade wrote the graffito “‘Am Yisra'el Ḥay” on the arch.) The new State of Israel adopted the arch's version of the menorah as its emblem in 1949, but Fine discovered in the Israeli archives an earlier proposal for a menorah with three legs rather than a geometric base, presumably to distance the state from the earlier Revisionist menorah symbol.
Not everyone endorsed the State of Israel's Arch of Titus menorah. Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog rejected the seal as based on an idolatrous model. Fine shows how the seventh rebbe of Lubavitch, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who rejected the secular Israeli state, adopted a menorah with straight branches rather than the one with curved branches from the arch. The provenance of this version is fascinating. In his commentary on the Mishnah, Moses Maimonides included a drawing of the menorah showing straight branches. In the twentieth century, the Yemenite scholar Yosef Qafih opposed Maimonides's menorah to that of the State of Israel, with the implication that the Yemenite tradition preserving Maimonides was more authentic than Ashkenazic traditions. Schneerson quoted Qafih approvingly, thus endorsing a non-Zionist alternative for the menorah. As Chabad made public lighting of Hanukah menorahs one of its signature campaigns, the straight-branch menorah became highly visible.
Fine closes his book with an examination of the way the messianic religious right in Israel has used the menorah as part of its own campaign to rebuild the temple. The story thus comes full circle, returning to its biblical origins. Fine makes it very clear that he views this last use of the menorah as politically dangerous. Indeed, one occasionally has the sense that the contemporary deployment of the menorah lies behind Fine's deep historical investigations, since his underlying argument is that absent the real menorah from the destroyed temple, Jews and Christians have been free to imagine it according to their own ideologies. This is a bracing and sobering lesson for all historians tracing ancient symbols to their modern incarnations.
