Your Menorah Deserves a Glow Up

We’re celebrating 100 years of Jewish Book Month with the Jewish Book Council. Join GOLDA this Sunday at the Jewish Book Month 100 pop-up bookstore on the Lower East Side—we’ll be hanging out there from 2 to 3 p.m. And stay tuned at the end of this newsletter for a book recommendation from the Jewish Book Council team.

GOLDA gang, it’s officially one month until Hanukkah. We’re starting our holiday shopping this Monday at the Jewish Museum Shop, which is staying open for GOLDA readers from 6 - 8 p.m. RSVP here to join us.  

The Jewish Museum Shop is one of my favorite places in New York City. They curate an exciting selection of high and low, fancy and fun Jewish objects and gifts. Every time I’m there I walk out with something beautiful and unexpected. So I wasn’t surprised to find out they carried my favorite new Judaica brand: Tchotcke.

Adam and Anna Paskow had the idea for Tchotchke when they were getting married and realized they couldn’t find Jewish objects that fit their modern aesthetic. Adam, a product designer, decided they should just start making the things they wanted themselves. The result is an industrial-inspired line of Judaica that is “whimsical, decadent, and ethereal”—and includes some extremely cool menorahs:

Bubble Menorah (Aluminum)

This menorah is carved out of a single piece of aluminum. It also comes in an iridescent version.

Ripple Menorah in Emerald

This one was just featured in the Wirecutter’s Best Modern Menorahs guide. The candles can be arranged however you want.

Bubble Menorah (Ceramic)

I stopped by the Tchotchke studio in Manhattan last week to talk to Adam and Anna about their bright designs, and why life is too short for boring Judaica. Check out the video here:

You can meet Adam and Anna at the Jewish Museum Shop on Monday, where their full line will be on display.

Another exciting addition to Monday’s shopping night is a preview of Henrietta—a very cool Jewish t-shirt company dreamed up by Periel Aschenbrand and Adi Eckhouse Barzilai as a way for Jews to celebrate their identity and tell their story in a post October 7 world. 

Henrietta is a nod to the trailblazing feminist and Zionist Henrietta Szold, who founded Hadassah and established Israel’s modern medical system. The brand is launching with the Miracle t-shirt: “In our story, it’s the one word that really matters,” Adi explained. “Jews look for miracles and light. Everything about us is a miracle—from our holidays to the fact that we literally still exist.” 

I asked them which Jews they would most want to see wearing the Miracle tee. 

“Henrietta Szold. Emily Damari,” Periel told me. “He’s not Jewish, but also Kanye, now that he’s done teshuvah.”

Get your Miracle t-shirt here or Monday night at the Jewish Museum. 

Shabbat Shalom and stay GOLDA,

Stephanie

Jewish Book Council Recommends:

The central question of Boy from the North Country, by Sam Sussman, might be whether the protagonist Evan is the son of Bob Dylan, but the real heart of the novel is the tender relationship between Evan and his mother June. With gorgeous language and a big-hearted spirit, Sam Sussman explores grief, love, loneliness, loss and the possibility of healing. And throughout, the questions in the book are steeped in Jewish values, asking what we do with the legacies we are given and how we use them to shape who we become.

-Tova Mirvis, Writer In Residence, Nu Reads