In 2026, the U.S. Postal Service issues its ninth Hanukkah stamp honoring the eight-day Jewish holiday observed by millions of people in the United States and around the world. The stamp art depicts a colorful illustration of a dreidel. USPS issued its first Hanukkah stamp in 1996, and a photograph of a dreidel also appeared on the 2004 Hanukkah stamp. Most Hanukkah stamps have highlighted illustrations and photographs of various hanukiot (the menorahs used exclusively at the Hanukkah celebration). The 2018 stamp, a joint issuance with Israel, spotlighted a hanukiah with an ornate background using the old Jewish folk art of paper cutting

Around 167 B.C.E., Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruler of the Seleucid Empire, engaged in a brutal campaign to force Jews to convert to Greek polytheism. He persecuted those who continued to practice Judaism and desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, which was the holiest of shrines for the Jewish people. The outnumbered Maccabees revolted and against all odds prevailed over the emperor’s much bigger armies. During the rededication of the Temple — Hanukkah is the Hebrew word for "dedication” — the sacramental oil needed to light the lamps was enough to burn for only one day; miraculously, it burned for eight days, lasting until new oil could be pressed.

Also called the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah is a time of joy celebrated with games, music, and special foods. One popular tradition is playing with a top known as a dreidel, a word that means “to turn” in Yiddish. Each of the toy’s four sides commonly bears a Hebrew letter: nun, gimel, heh, and shin. The letters represent the words “Nes gadol haya sham,” a phrase meaning “A great miracle happened there.” Instead of the letter shin, dreidels created in Israel use the letter peh for the word poe, meaning “here.”

According to Jewish folklore, when Seleucid government officials were near, Jewish children — then forbidden from studying the Torah — would hide their religious texts and take out their dreidels, pretending they were playing, not studying. However, many historians believe that the dreidel game was actually adapted in 16th-century Europe from a popular secular game called “teetotum.”

Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp using illustrator Lisa Perrin’s digital artwork, which reflects both the artist’s Jewish heritage and Eastern European folk art traditions. The centerpiece of the illustration is a dark blue dreidel featuring rust-colored Hebrew letters, against a turquoise background.

The stamp project is Perrin’s first for USPS. “My father has loved and collected stamps since he was a child,” says Perrin. “He is now in his eighties and I am so honored and proud to show him a stamp that I illustrated. It’s very special to create a piece of artwork about my culture and tradition. The Hanukkah story is very much about hope and light, something I think we could all use.”

The 2026 Hanukkah stamp is being issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever® stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.

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