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Knesset Menorah
31°46′42″N 35°12′18″E / 31.7783°N 35.2051°E
The Knesset Menorah (Hebrew: מנורת הכנסת Menorat HaKnesset) is a bronze menorah that is 4.30 meters high and 3.5 meters wide and weighs 4 tons. It is located at the edge of Wohl Rose Park (Hebrew Gan Havradim, "Rose Garden") opposite the Knesset in Jerusalem. It was designed by Benno Elkan (1877–1960), a Jewish sculptor who escaped from Germany to the United Kingdom. It was presented to the Knesset as a gift from the British Parliament on April 15, 1956, in honour of the eighth anniversary of Israeli independence.
The Knesset Menorah was modelled after the golden candelabrum that stood in the Temple in Jerusalem. A series of bronze reliefs on the Menorah depict the struggles to survive of the Jewish people, depicting formative events, images and concepts from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish history. The engravings on the six branches of the Menorah portray episodes since the Jewish exile from the Land of Israel. Those on the central branch portray the fate of the Jews from the biblical return to the Land to the establishment of the modern State of Israel. It has been described as a visual "textbook" of Jewish history.
In 1950, a year and a half after Israel's Declaration of Independence, Edwin Samuel, son of the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, Herbert Samuel, approached the Jewish artist Benno Elkan and discussed with him the idea of offering as a gift to the young Israeli state a monumental bronze sculpture in the form of a menorah. The gift would symbolize the admiration of the British Parliament for the new state and its government. Elkan had left Germany in 1933 after the Nazi rise to power and had become a well-known sculptor in England. He had experience working in bronze, having created ten large relief-decorated candelabra, among them two standing in the Westminster Abbey in London. The idea for such a Menorah had already formed in Elkan's mind in 1947, and he had begun to create the bronze reliefs in 1949. In total he spent almost ten years on the project, much of it in research, with the intention to create a unique work which would tell the millennia-old history of the nation of Israel.
The choice of the Menorah-symbol as a gift is based on the emblem of the State of Israel, chosen by the first Knesset. The outline of the Knesset Menorah and that appearing on Israel's state emblem are both based on the Menorah from the Arch of Titus in Rome. The Arch bears a relief depicting captured Jewish rebels from the Jewish revolt of 66-74 CE, presented in triumph to the people of Rome while bearing the treasures of the Second Temple after its destruction in 70 CE, including the Temple Menorah. The Arch is dated to 81 CE, and so the depiction of the Temple Menorah is considered by some to be accurate, assuming that the artist who created the relief must have seen the Menorah with his own eyes.
Lord Samuel initially had difficulty obtaining financing for the construction of a menorah, but with a joint decision Elkan began work, in the hope that funding would be obtained. At the same time, Lord Samuel and a few friends established "The Menorah Fund Committee", which operated in a number of ways to raise funds: a dinner party at the British House of Lords for potential donors, distributing pamphlets, advertising and more. The committee also raised funds in accordance with Menorah content, so that any donor could contribute to a specific relief of the Menorah.
On the base of the Menorah appear the details of the donors for example, WIZO financed the relief of Ruth and Rachel; 'Marks & Spencer' financed the relief of the Apocalypse; Baron James de Rothschild financed the relief of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai in memory of his late father, Baron Edmond de Rothschild; Relief Bar Kochba was funded by The Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen; Sir Louis Sterling financed the relief of Nehemiah and Shavei Zion in honor of Lord Samuel; Israel Electric Corporation funded the relief called "light" and more.
An English dedication on the base states:
Hub AI
Knesset Menorah AI simulator
(@Knesset Menorah_simulator)
Knesset Menorah
31°46′42″N 35°12′18″E / 31.7783°N 35.2051°E
The Knesset Menorah (Hebrew: מנורת הכנסת Menorat HaKnesset) is a bronze menorah that is 4.30 meters high and 3.5 meters wide and weighs 4 tons. It is located at the edge of Wohl Rose Park (Hebrew Gan Havradim, "Rose Garden") opposite the Knesset in Jerusalem. It was designed by Benno Elkan (1877–1960), a Jewish sculptor who escaped from Germany to the United Kingdom. It was presented to the Knesset as a gift from the British Parliament on April 15, 1956, in honour of the eighth anniversary of Israeli independence.
The Knesset Menorah was modelled after the golden candelabrum that stood in the Temple in Jerusalem. A series of bronze reliefs on the Menorah depict the struggles to survive of the Jewish people, depicting formative events, images and concepts from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish history. The engravings on the six branches of the Menorah portray episodes since the Jewish exile from the Land of Israel. Those on the central branch portray the fate of the Jews from the biblical return to the Land to the establishment of the modern State of Israel. It has been described as a visual "textbook" of Jewish history.
In 1950, a year and a half after Israel's Declaration of Independence, Edwin Samuel, son of the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, Herbert Samuel, approached the Jewish artist Benno Elkan and discussed with him the idea of offering as a gift to the young Israeli state a monumental bronze sculpture in the form of a menorah. The gift would symbolize the admiration of the British Parliament for the new state and its government. Elkan had left Germany in 1933 after the Nazi rise to power and had become a well-known sculptor in England. He had experience working in bronze, having created ten large relief-decorated candelabra, among them two standing in the Westminster Abbey in London. The idea for such a Menorah had already formed in Elkan's mind in 1947, and he had begun to create the bronze reliefs in 1949. In total he spent almost ten years on the project, much of it in research, with the intention to create a unique work which would tell the millennia-old history of the nation of Israel.
The choice of the Menorah-symbol as a gift is based on the emblem of the State of Israel, chosen by the first Knesset. The outline of the Knesset Menorah and that appearing on Israel's state emblem are both based on the Menorah from the Arch of Titus in Rome. The Arch bears a relief depicting captured Jewish rebels from the Jewish revolt of 66-74 CE, presented in triumph to the people of Rome while bearing the treasures of the Second Temple after its destruction in 70 CE, including the Temple Menorah. The Arch is dated to 81 CE, and so the depiction of the Temple Menorah is considered by some to be accurate, assuming that the artist who created the relief must have seen the Menorah with his own eyes.
Lord Samuel initially had difficulty obtaining financing for the construction of a menorah, but with a joint decision Elkan began work, in the hope that funding would be obtained. At the same time, Lord Samuel and a few friends established "The Menorah Fund Committee", which operated in a number of ways to raise funds: a dinner party at the British House of Lords for potential donors, distributing pamphlets, advertising and more. The committee also raised funds in accordance with Menorah content, so that any donor could contribute to a specific relief of the Menorah.
On the base of the Menorah appear the details of the donors for example, WIZO financed the relief of Ruth and Rachel; 'Marks & Spencer' financed the relief of the Apocalypse; Baron James de Rothschild financed the relief of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai in memory of his late father, Baron Edmond de Rothschild; Relief Bar Kochba was funded by The Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen; Sir Louis Sterling financed the relief of Nehemiah and Shavei Zion in honor of Lord Samuel; Israel Electric Corporation funded the relief called "light" and more.
An English dedication on the base states: