Question: I’m a tourist and saw a beautiful menorah at a flea market in Berlin. How ethical is it to buy Judaica whose origins I don’t know?
The ethics are complicated and there are reasons to buy, and also refrain from buying, such goods. I can’t give you a one-size-fits-all answer, but I can help you think through some of the issues at play through the lens of Jewish values.
Let’s start by defining what we mean by judaica. Judaica are items that are expressly Jewish. Quite often, we use them to perform mitzvot, such as candlesticks used for lighting Shabbat candles, or a Kiddush cup for saying the ritual blessing over wine. These items help make the behaviors and rhythms of Jewish life possible. It is important to remember that they are often one of several items needed to do a mitzvah. For example, Kiddush is the blessing over wine or grape juice, not over the kiddush cup, which is just used to hold that liquid.
Given that you are writing from Europe, it seems plausible you are wondering specifically about the menorah’s connection to World War II and the Holocaust. There is a chance that the item was stolen, it also could have been abandoned or sold.
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There are various halakhic and ethical ideas to consider when pondering this purchase. Let’s say the item was stolen. Are you permitted to use a stolen item to fulfill a mitzvah? The Babylonian Talmud, in Sukkah 29b-30a, addresses this exact question. There, the rabbis introduce an idea that a mitzvah that is done via transgression (i.e. by using a stolen item) is not actually fulfilled. So if you believe the menorah to be stolen, this would argue against using it yourself.
But what if you believe the menorah was lost? The same talmudic discussion introduces another important concept in Jewish law: hefker, or ownerlessness. If someone loses an item, they continue to own it, even when it is not in their physical possession. However, according to Jewish law, once they give up on the object — perhaps they believe that they will never be reunited with reading glasses lost at Grand Central Station — they forfeit halakhic ownership and the item becomes hefker.
Let’s get back to that menorah in the flea market. The menorah that you are seeing is presumably not hefker if it is being sold at a flea market. The seller is (most likely) the current owner. What we cannot easily know, however, is who were the owners before the seller? Before it belonged to that seller, was it hefker? Was it stolen?
The question of previous ownership can be significant, especially because Judaism has a complex system of inheritance laws. However, without knowing who the original owner, or last “proper” owner was, it is difficult to know if there is possibly a valid inheritor. The Holocaust further complicates this, as the owners of many of these items were murdered.
In some cases, archives and museums might be able to help you answer that question. However, many items have unclear history, especially items mass-produced in factories. The movement of an expensive painting is often easier to follow than of a set of mass-produced candlesticks. And in any case, it’s not practical to do this research at the flea market.
Civil law might also be able to help here. You’re writing from Berlin, Germany, where German civil law applies. The Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, or BGB — Germany’s civil law code, includes laws on stolen goods. In the case of purchasing a stolen item, if you didn’t know that it was stolen, after 10 years you officially become the owner. However, there is also a law that the statute of limitations for the owner to reclaim the object expires after 30 years.
The ideas introduced up until now have been more “negative” ideas than “positive” ideas — reasons not to buy that menorah. Let’s examine two reasons that support acquiring the object. The first is redemption. We’re not talking big-idea, end-of-times redemption, rather, redemption of items that were used in the Temple. Items and animals were dedicated to God, at which point they became sacred. However, if an animal developed a blemish, it couldn’t be sacrificed. In such an instance, the animal could be redeemed for money that was sent to the Temple in its place so another animal fit for sacrifice could be purchased.
While we’ve lived for almost 2,000 years without a Temple, we might ask ourselves whether Judaica has inherent sanctity. Many of these items are used in homes, which are considered rabbinically to be reflections of the Temple. Can we justify acquiring the item not to redeem it (i.e. use it for a different, non-sacred purpose) but to use it for a sacred task (i.e. mitzvot)?
Perhaps! But we cannot always know what an item was previously used for. Items with Hebrew or Yiddish engraving are more easily presumed to be Jewish. However, it is also possible that a pretty set of candlesticks, or even something resembling a menorah, are just decorative home goods that resemble Judaica. A menorah, however, is pretty clearly Judaica, so this is less relevant in your specific case.
One last concept to help you out is the idea of hiddur mitzvah, beautifying the mitzvah. This will help you decide on how much to pay. This idea comes from the Torah (Exodus 15:2) but really comes into its own in the Talmud. In Bava Kamma 9b, the rabbis decide that beautifying a mitzvah is so important, one can spend a third more on the object for the mitzvah than the typical cost. The inclusion of finances is significant here, because you are pondering buying an item. It’s hard to judge what a reasonable amount is for a used menorah. If the price feels a bit high, but still affordable-enough, maybe consider buying it. Some people, of course, feel that spending “too” much money on such an overpriced item might reward the seller, who is possibly selling an item with a sketchy history. However, there is also value in a beautiful menorah being used to fulfill its purpose of publicizing the Hanukkah miracle, rather than sitting unused in some cellar.
Hopefully some of these concepts can help guide you next time you come across flea market Judaica, whether in Europe, Israel, the US or elsewhere.
Paige Harouse is a graduate student in Germany interested in the nexus of language, memory, and identity.
