Accompanying Symbols

Stars of David on a wine label from the Tunisian island of Djerba card is courtesy of

Stephanie Comfort who published it on Flickr. Stephanie is one of the main contributors to this blog, and I bless the day I met her.

Lions frequently appear alongside the Star of David in Jewish, Christian, Pagan and in Ethiopian context, but I don’t remember seeing it in a Moslem or in a Buddhist context. Accompanying symbols may help decide to what religion a certain artifact belongs.

- Bacchus Temple frieze in Baal beck, Lebanon, is decorated with lions and bulls.

- Arthur Szyk created the Jewish Daily News emblem showing a Star of David with lion along with the Tables of the Covenant.

- David Ben Guryon suggested that the symbol of the Israeli state would be two lions holding the Tables of the covenant, just like here.

- The lions are seen as serving the King of all Kings.

- Both the tribes of Dan and Judah are compared to lions.

- Dalia Manor wrote that the aspirations of the founders of Bezalel School of art were to create "the original Hebrew style" and for that purpose they used recurrent Jewish symbols such as the Menorah, the Star of David, the Tablets of the Law, the Ark of the Covenant and lions.

- Tobias Foa, in 1556, printed a book with woodcut printer’s mark containing two rampant lions flanking a palm tree in whose center there is a Star of David.