Dr. J.J. Hirsh in his article The Hexagram (The
Shekel, vol. 14, no. 3, 1981) mentions that "Were it not for the
Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, the "Jewish Connection"
to the Hexagrams on the breweries and taverns of Germany would have
never surfaced. The last paragraph under Seal of Solomon states":
"Among the old Kabbalistic Hebrews, the Seal of
Solomon was, as a talisman, of course deemed to be a sure preventive against
the danger of fire. The more modem Jews, still believing in its talismanic
virtues, placed it as a safeguard on their houses and on their breweries,
because they were especially liable to the danger of fire. The common people, seeing
this figure affixed always to Jewish brew-houses, mistook it for a sign, and in
time, in Upper Germany, the hexagon, or Seal of Solomon, was adopted by German
innkeepers as the sign of a beer-house, just as the chequers have been adopted
in England, though with a different history, as the sign of a tavern".
