This blog (by Zeev Barkan) is dedicated to the Star of David, its history, its various meanings and usages in different cultures. It includes thousands of pictures of Star of David, six-pointed stars, hexagrams, Solomon's Seals, Magen Davids and yellow badges,and served as a resource for three books and four art exhibitions.
Photo is courtesy of Ben Ripen who wrote to me:
The hat was worn by a woman attending Dasara holiday celebrations at Mahalaxmi temple the main Hindu shrine in Bombay. The design is the logo for an academy of disaster relief management! Apparently the hexagram symbol therefore has something to do with health and well-being!
Copyright: Ben Ripen 2008
Illustration of a Star of David on the flag that the Bnei Menasheh “use” in Mizoram is copied from Wikipedia.Although Bnei Menasheh members see themselves as part of the Lost Tribes of Israel the flag is quite new. So far I didn’t find any ancient real evidence for the use of the six-pointed star by any of the so called Lost Tribes (but I’ll keep on searching).
25 years old American Chabad boxer Dmitriy Salita (alias: Star of David, some call him the kosher knockout) was born in Odessa, Ukraine and lives in Brooklyn, New York. In all his fights he wears a Star of David on his boxing shorts.
JNF issued in 1987 a holocaust stamp with a yellow badge on concentration camp prisoner uniform, and with two Hebrew poems: one by Chayim Guri (1923 - ) and one by Avraham Shlonsky (1900 – 1973). IMHO the idea of displaying poems on stamps is brilliant, and I’m sorry this is the only instance of poems on stamps that I know… The stamps are courtesy of Hayim Shtayer and part of his collection.
Photo is courtesy of Dr. Haim Grossman.
Since I helped organize the Magen David Festival in Yavne I was very pleased to read what Dov Gutterman wrote on 7 June 2007 in the Flags of the World website:
I was invited to give a lecture during a "Magen David Festival" held in the city of Yavne on Passover. Just before me, there was a lecture by Dr. Haim Grossman, who lectured about "Herzel and the Magen David", and his findings gave me the missing link.
As we know, Herzl's idea about the flag of the Jewish homeland was made of seven gold stars on white background. Dr. Grossman sent me scan from Herz'l diary in which one can see that the stars were arranged as such: 6 stars will make a virtual Magen David and the seventh star will be above them. Putting gold stars on white flag is not a good idea as in quite a short distance this flag will be seen as white-only flag, and therefore, it is not surprising that it was not adopted.
However, Herzl designed one thing more. He designed an emblem for the Zionist Congress. Again, thanks to Dr. Grossman findings, we can see that Herzl's idea was exactly the same as the central device of the first Zionist flag.
So, Wolfson may "invent" the blue stripes but for the center of the flag he took the Zionist Congress emblem designed by Herz'l.
Here the Solomon Seals appear above the arch of the Dome of the Rock. Actually there are more six-pointed stars on the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem: a large one is to be found on a wooden ornament that had been inside the Dome of the Rock, but was transferred to Rockefeller Museum. Another large one is embedded in the marble floor of the Dome of the Chain, immediately to the east of the Dome of the Rock.
Copyright: ©David Kolker 2008
