InstitutionJewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum is a New York art museum devoted to Jewish culture and global connections. Founded in 1904, it preserves nearly 30,000 works and holds the largest documented institutional collection of Hanukkah lamps.

New York City, United StatesFounded 1904

About

The Jewish Museum is an art museum in New York City devoted to Jewish culture and its global connections. It was founded in 1904 in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary and developed into one of the oldest Jewish museums still operating. The museum describes its broader collection as nearly 30,000 works of art, ceremonial objects and media representing Jewish life across centuries and regions. Its holdings began with Judge Mayer Sulzberger’s donation of ceremonial objects, prints and photographs, and grew through major gifts and acquisitions. Today the museum presents exhibitions, education programs and collection research that connect historical Judaica with modern and contemporary art. Its Hanukkah-lamp holdings are a particularly distinctive part of this long collecting history, bringing together objects made across many communities, materials and artistic traditions.

Video

NYC Traveler – The Jewish Museum: introduction to the museum, its history and collections.

Background video about this holder. It is not evidence for any JWR record value.

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Records held by The Jewish Museum

Nineteenth-century brass Hanukkah lamp from The Jewish Museum collection

JWR Verified

Jewish Heritage · Ritual ObjectsLargest

Largest Institutional Collection of Hanukkah Lamps

Record holder

The Jewish Museum

Record value

Nearly 1,050 Hanukkah lamps

The Jewish Museum in New York holds the largest documented institutional collection of Hanukkah lamps. In a 28 November 2022 release, the museum described its holdings as nearly 1,050 pieces, assembled over 118 years. A 2025 collection installation again described more than 1,000 lamps, confirming the continuing scale of the permanent collection. The holdings span regions, periods, materials and artistic traditions, showing how Jewish communities adapted the ritual lamp to local cultures while preserving the Hanukkah practice of kindling lights. JWR defines this record as the greatest number of Hanukkah lamps held in the permanent collection of one public museum or institution. Temporary exhibitions, commercial stock, private collections, general seven-branched menorahs and non-Hanukkah lamps are excluded. A targeted comparison of major Jewish and public museum collections found no authoritative institutional total above the Jewish Museum’s reported figure. The museum also described the collection as the world's largest in an earlier official 26 November 2018 announcement, corroborating the 2022 figure rather than relying on a single press release. The 2025 display of over 130 lamps is an exhibition subset, not the collection total.

Country: United States
Achievement location: New York City, New York, United States
Achievement date: 28 November 2022

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