Happy Hanukkah Stamp Season to Those Who Celebrate

Some people call this the “holiday season,” but to me it’s “Pick Out the Prettiest Stamp Season,” the one time I don’t mind the line at the post office. I’m not always Hanukkah-focused—that one year when the children’s book A Snowy Day had a stamp, we used those. But often, standing in line at the post office, holiday spirit leaking out of my ears, elbowing through Christmas decorations, by the time I get to the front of the line, I just request Hanukkah stamps as a reflex. It’s just like when I buy out all the Hanukkah wrapping paper at Target just so they’ll be more likely to order it again next year. Since I didn’t start sending out year-end letters until the 21st century, I have always lived in a Holiday Card world with Hanukkah stamps, and I probably took them for granted. I didn’t realize the stamps were only a few years old when I met them.

In fact, the first stamp in the United States to commemorate a Jewish holiday was issued by the Postal Service in 1996. It perhaps won’t surprise you to learn that the first Christmas stamp came much earlier—in 1962, making the Christmas stamp even older than me. Though the postal service tried to claim for decades that having Jewish-themed stamps was too religious, variations on a Madonna and Child stamp was an annual Christmas stamp issue tradition beginning in 1965. Many lobbied for a Hanukkah stamp—the New York Times reported in 1991 that the members of the Jewish Folk Arts Society in Rockville were collecting letters as part of a lobbying effort. In 1996 the United States Post Office finally issued its first Hanukkah stamp. The familiar, colorful cut-paper menorah was designed by Hannah Smotrich, who was then a graphic design instructor at the Corcoran School of Art and Design (Fun fact: you might be familiar with Smotrich’s work since she also designed the neighborhood heritage trail markers, self-guided walking tours for exploring the cultural history of DC neighborhoods). In any case, her rainbow-colored menorah stamp design had a long reign and was re-issued for many years for the holiday.

Pane of 2013 Hanukkah Stamps; Art director: Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD; Photographer: George E. Brown of Alexandria, VA. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum Collection

First Day of Issue Hanukkah Stamp, 1996. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum

Beginning in 2004, the Postal Service started a cycle of commissioning new designs for the stamps every two years. Hanukkah stamps have featured dreidels but usually return to the menorah, or the hanukkiah, a special candelabra used during the holiday. The 2013 stamp was art directed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda and photographed by George E. Brown of Alexandria, VA. The stamp features a photograph of a wrought-iron menorah made by Steven Bronstein, a Vermont blacksmith, now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. We are lucky to have the actual inspirational menorah on display at the Capital Jewish Museum in December, on loan from the Postal Museum, along with our collection of Hanukkah stamps and first covers. (We have worked with the National Postal Museum before; they lent us materials related to the Ruth Bader Ginsberg stamp we had on view a few years ago. It is always lovely to work with nearby museums to display objects that resonate with the history we tell here at the Museum—looking forward to future opportunities to collaborate).

Hanukkiah, Steven Bronstein, Blacksmith, ca. 2013. Loan from United States Postal Service, Postmaster’s General’s Collection, courtesy the National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

First Day of Issue Hanukkah Stamp 2013; Art director: Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD; Photographer: George E. Brown of Alexandria, VA. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum Collection

Display case featuring a wrought-iron menorah on loan from the Smithsonian National Postal Museum and a selection of Hanukkah stamps and first covers, December 2025.

Meanwhile, in Fall 2024, the Museum had a special opportunity to celebrate the Hanukkah stamp as the host venue for the USPS’ unveiling of its new design. Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp and spoke about his inspiration. As one of the tens of thousands of people in the DC area who work for the federal government, Alcalá’s role as art director at USPS is one example of the stories we amplify at the Museum, and we were honored to be the location for the first cover ceremony. Alcalá has a design studio in Old Town Alexandria and began his association with the Postal Service in 2010, serving on the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, the group that identifies the content of new commemorative stamps. Over the course of his career at USPS, he has designed and art directed over 100 stamps. (Check out the designs he posts at Studio A, where you’ll see some of his beautiful work).

The Hanukkah stamp is the only Jewish holiday stamp produced by the USPS. The 2024 design was Alcalá’s first Hanukkah stamp in a long career of stamp designing, and as such, was particularly meaningful to him. In his remarks, Alcalá spoke about how designing this stamp allowed him the unusual opportunity to honor his own heritage and share his American story through art. His mother and her siblings escaped from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport. Alcalá used a hand-drawn menorah with asymmetrical lines in his design instead of using an impersonal, computer-designed process. The image features flames but no candles to “suggest the role of faith in the gap between fire and the menorah.”

First Day of Issue Ceremony Hanukkah Stamp, 2024. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum. Chris Ferenzi Photography

Whatever stamps you affix to your letters this year, I hope you take a moment to think about the design of the stamp. And if you’re not sending cards, perhaps you will be lucky enough to receive one, and maybe the person who mailed it to you spared a thought for which one you might like best. Of course, you can always use Hanukkah stamps to pay bills or parking tickets, but when I think of using this stamp, it’s always on a card, and it always brings a little spark of holiday cheer.

Happy holidays, everyone.

The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the US federal government.

The Museum’s initiative to collect items telling the stories of local Jewish federal workers and federal agencies is supported by Sue Ducat in memory of Stanley Cohen (z’l). Learn more about this initiative and read previous blog posts.

Hanukkiah on loan from United States Postal Service, Postmaster’s General’s Collection, courtesy the National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

If you have artifacts or images related to Jewish federal workers and federal agencies in the DC region, contact us at [email protected]