Hanukkah Lamp

The most common motif on the Viennese lamps in the collection consists of two rampant lions flanking the Decalogue (Ten Commandments). The reason for its popularity may be related to the type of Judaism practiced in Vienna in the nineteenth century. While various Jewish traditions and denominations were represented, the community was largely Reform in orientation. One of the tenets of the Reform ideology is that Judaism can evolve and change, and that religious laws and ceremonies followed in one era need not be valid for later generations. As part of this belief, Reform Jews no longer felt it necessary to wish for the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, interpreting this messianic hope in more universal terms.
For millennia, the seven-branch menorah had symbolized this Jewish hope for the restoration of Israel, and was represented on all manner of ceremonial objects from ancient tombstones to Hanukkah lamps. The substitution of the Decalogue, symbol of the law that could be freely interpreted in each age, for the menorah would seem to have ideological overtones. In fact, the only Jewish symbol included in the architectural decoration of the first Reform synagogue in Vienna (the Stadttempel, built on the Seitenstettengasse in 1826) was the Decalogue located above the Torah ark. Furthermore, the menorah is also absent in the ornamentation of the synagogue's textiles and silver implements for the Torah.