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JWR VerifiedFounding RecordJWR-2026-000244

Jewish Heritage · Ritual ObjectsMost

Most Expensive Mezuzah Sold in a Private Sale

Record holder

Record value

US$51,361

Country represented: IsraelAchievement location: Jerusalem, IsraelAchievement date: 6 July 2009Current record

Verified by Jewish World RecordsHow we verify records

Mezuzah on a doorway in Safed

Illustrative mezuzah; not Avraham Borshevsky's privately sold record artwork.Djampa / Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC BY-SA 4.0

Official record definition

The highest Guinness World Records-certified private-sale price for a mezuzah.

Measurement methodology

Guinness World Records-certified private-sale price for the completed mezuzah artwork.

Measurement point: documented private-sale price

Record story

The record for the 'Most Expensive Mezuzah Sold in a Private Sale' was set on 6 July 2009 in Jerusalem, Israel. The mezuzah achieved a documented private-sale price of US$51,361, a figure certified by Guinness World Records for the completed artwork. The piece was created by Avraham Borshevsky, a Jerusalem-based Israeli master scribe and Hebrew calligrapher, who was named by Guinness as the record holder.

A notable aspect of the sale is the significance of the price. According to information from Guinness, the value of US$51,361 was intentionally chosen to equal the gematria sum of all the Hebrew letters written on the parchment contained within the mezuzah. The record is defined within the active Guinness World Records category for the most expensive mezuzah sold in a private sale.

Media

Record video

How JWR verified this record

Verification status
Verified
Verification date
27 September 2026
Verification standard
JWR Verification Standard 1.0

Achievement evidence

Guinness World Records certifies the US$51,361 private-sale mezuzah and names Avraham Borshevsky as holder.

Superiority evidence

The active Guinness category is explicitly scoped to the most expensive mezuzah sold in a private sale; the record is intrinsically Jewish through the mezuzah object and independently supported holder identity.

Jewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Jewish eligibility verification

Evidence establishing that the holder qualifies as Jewish for JWR purposes.

  • What is a Mezuzah? — My Jewish Learning
  • Jewish success story: Avraham Borshevsky growth to top scribe, Judaica talent — The Jerusalem Post

Achievement / record verification

Evidence establishing that the holder achieved the result and holds the record as defined.

  • Most expensive mezuzah sold in a private sale — Guinness World Records

Jewish eligibility, achievement and superiority evidence retain their separate classifications and are never merged. Context and provenance are not presented as proof of the achievement. Restricted evidence and internal research notes are never published. Learn more about the seven-stage process on the verification page.

Have documented contrary evidence or a stronger counter-candidate? Submit a challenge for review.

Sources & Verification

History

  1. Verified

    Verified according to JWR Verification Standard 1.0.

  2. Publishedv1

    Published to the official JWR registry.

One of the Cammarata Torah finials with Hebrew inscription details
JWR VerifiedFounding Record
Jewish Heritage · Ritual ObjectsOldest

Oldest Torah Finials (Rimmonim)

Record value

1493

The Cammarata Torah finials, or rimmonim, are a rare surviving pair of fifteenth-century Jewish ceremonial silver objects associated with the Jewish community of Cammarata in Sicily. They were made for use on a Torah scroll and are securely documented in Palma by 1493, providing a conservative record date. Their importance goes beyond age: portable synagogue silver from medieval Mediterranean Jewish communities rarely survived expulsion, migration, reuse and later destruction. The pair's Hebrew inscriptions and documented provenance preserve unusually direct evidence of Jewish ritual life before the end of the fifteenth century. Today the objects are preserved in Palma de Mallorca. JWR treats the record as an object-history record: the achievement location is Cammarata, while present custody and display are documented separately.

Country
Spain
Achievement location
Cammarata, Italy
Achievement date
1493
View full record
World's Largest Menorah on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan
JWR VerifiedFounding Record
Jewish Heritage · Ritual ObjectsLargest

Largest Menorah

Record holder

Shmuel Butman

Record value

9.7 m × 8.5 m

The giant Manhattan menorah is a record object, a public ritual structure and a recurring piece of New York's holiday landscape. Rabbi Shmuel Butman spent decades promoting public Hanukkah lightings, and the 32-foot menorah associated with him and designed by Yaacov Agam became the most visible expression of that work. JWR records the Guinness dimensions while transparently flagging the one-year date inconsistency inside the Guinness page itself.

Country represented
United States
Achievement location
New York City, New York, United States
Achievement date
29 December 2006
View full record
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
View full record