Description
The star-shaped lamp, known in German as the Judenstern ("Jews' star"), is a hanging oil lamp whose star-shaped reservoir with radiating points bears several spouts and wicks. It was lit each Shabbat eve in Ashkenazic homes, then raised and lowered by means of a ratchet rod allowing its height to be adjusted. Cast or hammered in brass, sometimes in silver, it constitutes one of the most characteristic types of domestic ritual lighting in the Ashkenazic world, attested from the Middle Ages to the modern period. Its form is related to that of hanging Shabbat lamps from other regions, such as the Judeo-Persian star-shaped lamp.
