New Hanukkah stamp features a hanukkiah

The U.S. Postal Service has issued a new Hanukkah stamp for 2016. It depicts a hanukkiah (a menorah for Hanukkah) in a window through which one can see snow-covered branches.

In 1996, 34 years after the first Christmas stamp was issued in the United States, the Postal Service issued its first Hanukkah stamp jointly with Israel, sharing the same design.  Since then, the stamp has been redesigned twice: in 2004, when it showed a dreidel, and in October 2009, when it was a hanukkiah.

The Postal Service now issues many holiday stamps, such as for the Eid festivals of Islam, the African-American Kwanzaa and the Hindu holiday of Diwali. 

Only a few other countries issue Hanukkah stamps. Grenada’s stamp features Disney characters playing with a dreidel.

Hanukkah stamps were not the first “Jewish” stamps issued by the United States, but we cannot compete with some countries, such as Hungary and Ukraine, which issue many stamps depicting Jewish ritual objects and synagogues. However, many Rhode Islanders remember the Touro Synagogue stamp from 1982, showing the only synagogue ever depicted on an American stamp.

For the bicentennial, the Postal Service issued stamps depicting Haym Salomon and Bernard Revel, who was shown wearing a kippah.

Alan Shawn Feinstein even got his children on a postage stamp, though not an American stamp.

There are also stamps that honor Jews indirectly, such as by using their photographs, paintings or sculptures to depict other people. Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the raising of the American flag over Iwo Jima is an example.

The Jewish connections of other stamps are not always as easy to figure out. When the Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Los Angeles class submarines, only the scarcely noticeable hull number of the pictured sub gave any indication that the submarine was named for a Jew, Adm. Hyman G. Rickover.

 Similarly, the U.S. recently issued stamps to honor “Star Trek.” One featured the Vulcan salute, which the late Leonard Nimoy made famous. Nimoy was very open about how he decided on that greeting: He copied it from the way kohanim (members of the Jewish priestly class) hold their hands when asking God to bestow blessings on the congregation in Orthodox and some Conservative synagogues.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gary Goodman (garygoodman@talktalk.net) publishes a monthly e-letter on the subject of Jewish stamps. It is distributed free to those who contact him.

LARRY KATZ is director of Jewish life and learning at the Jewish Alliance. You can contact him to learn more about stamps with Jewish themes (lkatz@jewishallianceri.org).