“Technically a ‘menorah’ has seven branches while a chanukah menorah, or chanukiyah, has nine branches, for eight candles and one shamash,” said Rabbi Rachel Barenblat of Williamstown. There is one ...

The 19th-century menorah in my grandmother’s house in Ukraine was intricately made with delicately laced silver flowers and oval medallions on both sides that bore Hebrew writing. Instead of a shamash ...