In Antwerp, there is a section of Hoveniersstraat where the buildings have an almost aggressively plain appearance. Built in the 1960s, this flat-fronted building has beige and grey facades that might be found in an insurance office park. However, the men in dark suits walking quickly with briefcases chained to their wrists, the groups of CCTV cameras, and the armed soldiers stationed at the corners all paint a different picture. Approximately 84% of the world’s rough diamonds pass through this area before they end up on a finger. It is known as the Diamond Quarter. Additionally, a more subdued form of commerce that has little to do with engagement rings or retail display cases starts here every autumn as the days get shorter throughout northern Europe.
There is no advertising for the Hanukkah commission season in Antwerp’s diamond district. Catalogues do not exist. No webpages. Usually, the process starts with a dialogue, sometimes in Flemish, sometimes in Yiddish, and sometimes in a combination of the two that only makes sense within a few city blocks. A client, typically from a Haredi Orthodox family with strong ties to the area, approaches a reputable atelier with a request: a menorah, a dreidel, a set of candleholders, or occasionally a piece of jewelry meant as a Hanukkah present. All of these items feature diamonds in ways that combine religious symbolism with an almost obsessive level of craftsmanship.
It’s not just the materials that set these commissions apart. It is the specificity of theology. A menorah intended for a family’s private celebration may need settings made to reflect candlelight in a way that alludes to the miracle of the oil lasting eight nights, or stones cut to specific proportions that echo kabbalistic numerology. One Antwerp polisher described spending three months on a single menorah branch, matching nine stones so precisely that they all seemed to glow with the same internal fire. He asked to remain anonymous because his clients place a high value on discretion. “You can’t rush that,” he stated. “And these families don’t want you to.”
The Jewish community has been involved in Antwerp’s diamond trade since the fifteenth century, when traders who were escaping the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal discovered that the city’s authorities were open to accepting skilled traders who had been excluded from other professions throughout Europe. Diamonds were a kind of wealth that could be transported across borders in a leather pouch. In the end, that pragmatism created a whole quarter. Jewish families controlled the trade by the early 20th century. Nearly two thirds of Antwerp’s Jewish population perished in the Holocaust, but the district rebuilt itself around the survivors as a result of postwar recovery efforts.
The demographics have changed significantly in the modern era. An estimated 75% of Antwerp’s diamond industry is currently controlled by Indian families, and the number of active polishers has decreased from about 40,000 in the 1960s to less than 300. However, the Hanukkah commission tradition endures in the remaining Haredi workshops with an almost defiant stubbornness. A client will wait eighteen months for a piece that a machine could approximate in weeks in one of the few areas of the diamond trade where handcraft still commands a premium over speed.
These commissions seem to have a function other than decoration. A Hanukkah piece forged in the same district carries a weight unrelated to carats for families whose grandparents rebuilt livelihoods from nothing after the war and whose ancestors transported diamonds across hostile borders. It’s a physical representation of memory. “They’re not buying a menorah,” the polisher I spoke with put it plainly. They’re preserving something.”
It’s unclear if this custom will endure for another generation. Although the district employs about 34,000 people and brings in about $54 billion annually, the artisanal sector of the economy is becoming less and less significant. Younger Orthodox people are pursuing careers in technology, real estate, and finance. The masters of the ateliers that formerly lined Hoveniersstraat are older, and there are now fewer of them. Nevertheless, the requests continue to arrive each autumn. A London family. A New York collector. Someone in Jerusalem who learned about a specific polisher from a relative. Behind buzzer-locked doors, the discussions take place in a language that is not widely spoken in the city. For a few months, this unremarkable little street transforms into what it has been for 500 years—a location where portable faith is shaped, one aspect at a time—after the stones are chosen and construction gets underway.