UKRAINE MENORAH MADE WITH COINS

Ever since I was a child, I can remember seeing an old 19th century Chanukah menorah in my grandmother’s house in the Ukraine. My grandmother was born in 1905 in the small Ukrainian town, Olevsk, and was the youngest daughter of Reb Levi Itzhak Gottlieb and granddaughter of Reb Ishua Gottlieb, renowned tzadikkim from Ludmir. Both had moved from Ludmir to Olevsk were they are buried. Their ohalim are among the few that survived virtually untouched. Every year people from across the globe come to pray at their kevarim.

The old menorah was intricately made with delicately laced silver flowers and had two symmetrical oval medallions on both sides with Hebrew writing on them. A small silver vessel hung from the top corner and was used as the shamash. Some parts, including the silver curved legs, the tiny lids and a beautiful stone in the middle, had been lost over the years.

My mother inherited the menorah, and when we came to the United States in 1995, she brought it with her. She gifted it to me some years ago and we used it every year. However, with each passing year, it was becoming more fragile, so we just kept it on display.

Over the last two years, I became more interested in our family history and looked to confirm some of the amazing stories I have heard about our ancestors. I hired a researcher in the Ukraine and was able to trace back 10 generations to Reb Shlomo HaLevi Gottlieb from Karlin and his son Reb Moshe. We found that Reb Shlomo had married Chaya Sara Twersky, the daughter of Rav Aharon Twersky of Chernobyl.

It seems that the oval medallions on the side contained information about Levi Itzhak. It has his name, the word shlita and the letters “ב’ה’ה’ר י’א” indicating that he was the son of a rebbe. There was also an “I,” which we assume was for his son Ishua Gottlieb, and the letter “A” the meaning of which we could not figure out. The left lower line contained Hebrew letters indicating a blessing for his righteous memory.

I could not believe that the evidence that my great-grandparents were renowned rabbis, and their names, was right in front of me all my life. I was happy, and I thought that I had figured out everything about our Chanukah menorah.

A few months later, I decided to polish the menorah for the High Holidays. I was careful, but as I rinsed it, I saw that one of the candleholders came loose and had fallen off. My heart sunk from the thought that I had destroyed the memory of generations. I started to make plans to take it for repairs, when, under close inspection I noticed that the candleholder had a tiny screw at the bottom. I piled up several pairs of magnifying reading glasses and realized that the bottom of the screw had a number, as did the base of the menorah. While hot water had melted the years of oil and candles that had glued it all together, I saw the candleholder was unscrewed, but it was not broken. To my amazement, every candleholder was numbered from 1 to 8, and the base was numbered as well – yet they weren’t assembled in the proper order.

One by one, I unscrewed each candleholder and scrubbed them well. It turns out that at the base of each candle holder was a silver coin.

We photographed and recorded each one, then put it back together in the exact same order we found it in. The coins were from 3 countries – Russia, Austria-Hungary and Romania. The oldest coin was from 1859, and the newest from 1893.

To read the complete article, see:
A Family Treasure (http://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/a-family-treasure/2018/12/10/)

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