Kiddush

The cup was likely used for Kiddush to bless the wine on the eve of Shabbat — but nobody knows for sure because the original owners, Bavarian cattle dealer Salomon Gutmann and his wife Karolina, who were the grandparents of Benjamin, were murdered by the Nazis in the Treblinka extermination camp.

But several museums ended up with hundreds of silver pieces such as candlesticks used to light candles on the eve of Shabbat, Kiddush cups to bless the wine, silver spoons and cake servers.

And it, too, was so much longer than the Kiddush she said at home.

One prayer was read in memory of the “Kedoshim of Pittsburgh, murdered al kiddush Hashem” — holy martyrs, killed while sanctifying God’s name.

The Bavarian National Museum in Munich recently sent a 19th-century kiddush cup to Steven Bergman, a retired executive in Maryland.