This is a drawing that appeared on a postcard from 1903 by the artist Alphonse Levy. The drawing was first published in a book in 1886 and includes the title “Chanukah” misspelt in Hebrew. This faulty spelling might indicate that the writer had oral but not textual knowledge of Hebrew. The caption at the bottom, written in French, describes the scene as a grandfather singing the prayers with his grandson as they light the Chanukah candles. The painting depicts Jewish life in the eastern French region of Alsace at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. In the drawing, a young boy is lighting the chanukiya with his grandfather and holding an open prayer book to his chest as he sings along. The grandfather is leaning on the table where the candles are being lit, gesturing with his index finger and looking down at his grandson with a warm smile on his face. His overall demeanour is one of familiarity and love as the two sing the blessings together and the grandson looks up with an expression of awe. Looking on in the background is the grandmother, who is holding a baby and smiling. All of the family members are wearing the traditional clothing of the Alsace region. On the wall is a Judenstern, the Shabbat candelabra that was used in Germany and France. It is interesting to note that the boy seems to be lighting the candles in the chanukiya in the wrong direction. This, along with the spelling mistake, could illustrate the dichotomy between tradition and modernity that was common at this time.
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Alphonse Lévy - Alphonse Lévy (1843-1918) was a Jewish artist from Alsace (a region in eastern France) who drew many pictures of Alsatian and Algerian Jews performing various rituals and customs. This was at a time when many European Jews were abandoning religion for the sake of integrating into modern society. Some of his drawings were included in Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's late nineteenth-century book about the Jews.
Chanuka - Chanuka celebrates the rededication of the Temple by Judah the Maccabee and his army after their victory over the Greeks in 165 BCE. One of the well-known miracles of the Chanukah story is the small portion of oil that was able to light the Menorah in the Temple and burn for eight nights. Chanukah begins on 25 Kislev and is celebrated by lighting a Chanukiya for eight nights. It is also traditional to eat fried foods (to symbolise the oil) and play with spinning tops known as dreidles.
The Jewish Community of France – Jews have lived in France since the early Middle Ages and possibly even earlier. In the Middle Ages Jews lived principally in the south of France, in the capital, Paris, and in the eastern town of Alsace and were often merchants and moneylenders. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages and famous Jewish sages, such as Rashi, lived in France. As in other European countries, the Jews in France suffered from persecution, expulsions, and pogroms such as the crusades. They lived in separate quarters, often close to the castle or church that sometimes gave them protection in return for loans. France was the first European country to give equal rights to the Jews; nonetheless, anti-Semitism continued even to the end of the nineteenth century as demonstrated by the Dreyfus Affair. At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, many Eastern European Jews immigrated to France. These Jews were the first to be persecuted in France during the Second World War in both the Occupied Zone and the areas under the Vichy regime. Many of these foreign Jews were deported to concentration camps, to be accompanied later by their French brethren. One quarter of the Jewish population of France was murdered during the Holocaust. Today, the Jewish community of France is the largest in Europe and the third largest in the world, after Israel and the United States. The majority of the Jewish community today is of North African origin, as many of the original Ashkenazi Jews were killed in the Holocaust, emigrated to Israel and other countries, or assimilated into the general population.
