Eastern European glass yahrzeit (memorial) lamp

This memorial lamp (yahrzeit) was lit on the Hebrew anniversary of a death and during Yom Kippur, in Memory of the family's departed. The lighting of a commemorative flame, which should ideally burn for twenty-four hours, is a deeply rooted custom in the rituals of Jewish mourning and Memory. In Eastern Europe, this type took the form of a glass cup filled with oil, placed on a metal stand, in which a wick floated. As a domestic object of remembrance, the yahrzeit lamp embodies the bond between the living and their dead in Ashkenazi practice.