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Jewish Anniversary Gift Guide

What an anniversary gift is for

A birthday gift is about one person. An anniversary gift is about two people and the thing they built between them, which is why the categories that work are narrower than they first appear. Something worn on the body says "you"; something used at the table says "us". Both are correct, but they are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong register is the most common mistake.

There is also a Jewish-specific point. Most couples have two anniversary dates: the civil one on the invitation and the Hebrew one, which drifts across the secular calendar from year to year. Couples who keep the Hebrew date tend to keep it seriously, and an object engraved with it will be read as a much closer piece of attention than the same object engraved with a number.

Who is giving: spouses, children, friends

Work out which of these you are before you look at anything, because it sets both the category and the price.

The rule that saves most people: jewellery is for spouses. When children or friends give jewellery it tends to read as a gift to one half of the marriage, which is the opposite of the intention. Give the house something instead.

The year matters: first, tenth, twenty-fifth, fiftieth

The traditional year-by-year materials are a Victorian invention rather than a Jewish one, but the underlying instinct is sound: early years want something light and personal, later years want something that will be inherited.

Jewellery for her

The useful thing about Jewish jewellery at an anniversary is that it carries a subject as well as a price. A hamsa, a Star of David, the Hebrew letters: the piece says something before it says how much it cost.

At the entry level, a bracelet "Hamsa with ornament and Stars of David" with silver at $99 is the right weight of gift for a first or second anniversary, or for a smaller occasion inside a bigger year. The Jewish bracelet gift guide sets out the differences between silver, gilded silver and white gold in this range.

For a tenth or a twenty-fifth, the step up is the gold "Ice and Fire" pendant named above at $1,980, or earrings "Ice and Fire" made of white gold at $1,050 if she already wears a pendant she will not replace. Buying a matching piece to something she already owns is usually better received than introducing a new design she has to find room for. More on the whole category in Jewish gifts for a wife.

Cufflinks and desk pieces for him

Men are harder at anniversaries because the obvious categories are either too functional or too close to a birthday. Cufflinks solve it: they are worn, they are visible, they are not clothing, and they are one of the few things a wife can buy a husband without guessing a size.

Silver cufflinks "Chay" with black onyx at $1,200 are the version most often bought for an eighteenth or a twenty-fifth, for the obvious reason that chai is eighteen. Other subjects in the same range run from $700 upward. Cufflinks as gifts covers the full set, and Jewish gifts for a husband takes in the desk pieces, decanters and bronzes that suit a man who does not wear French cuffs.

The home is the shared thing

For anyone who is not a spouse, this is the section that matters. A marriage is most visible in a house, so objects for the house are the natural anniversary gift from children, grandchildren and friends.

A case for mezuzah "Jerusalem" made of silver at $1,200 is the standard twenty-fifth-anniversary gift from grown children, and silver is the point of it. The listing covers the case; a klaf is arranged separately on request, and how it is fixed follows the family's own custom, with Ashkenazi and Sephardi practice differing in places, so leave that question to their rabbi. The range is in the wedding collection and there is a fuller discussion in mezuzah cases as a wedding gift, which applies equally to an anniversary.

A blessing for home at $950 does the same job on a wall rather than a doorpost, and is the easiest gift to sign from several people at once. It is the piece to choose when the couple already has everything and there is nowhere obvious left to put an object.

Renewing something bought at the wedding

The most quietly effective anniversary gift is a better version of something the couple bought cheaply when they married. Nobody spends properly on a kiddush cup at twenty-four. Twenty-five years later, the chipped one is still on the table.

A becher (kiddush cup) and saucer for kiddush "Letters of the Hebrew alphabet" made of silver at $950 replaces the wedding-list version with the one that gets handed down. A challah cover with art "Letters of the Hebrew alphabet" at $900 does the same for the cloth that has been washed every week for two decades.

Both of these are also the right answer when one couple is giving to another, because they are used by the household rather than owned by one person. See luxury Shabbat gifts for the rest of the table, and the luxury wedding gift guide if you are building a set over several years.

Engraving the Hebrew date, and what to spend

Engraving is $50 and adds production time. For an anniversary the wording is short: two names, and the Hebrew date rather than the civil one. If you do not know the Hebrew date, ask one of the couple's children rather than guessing from a converter, because the day changes at nightfall and a wedding held in the evening often falls on the following Hebrew date. Engraved Judaica gifts explains what each material will take.

Order early. Much of the catalogue is made to order with lead times of roughly three to four weeks, and engraving sits on top of that. Six weeks before the date is comfortable; two is not.