Happy New Year Diaspora

Star of David on a Happy New Year Card from the beginning of the 19th century is from Hayim Shtayer’s excellent and famous collection of Happy New Year Cards. It most probably expresses the longing for the return of Israel to the Promised Land. The Hebrew caption is strange and looks like a mistake: If I’ll forget you, Diaspora…instead of: If I’ll forget you, Jerusalem.

Zion Gate Happy New Year Card

Star of David alongside the Ten Commandments on a Happy New Year Card from the beginning of the 19th century is from Hayim Shtayer’s excellent and famous collection of Happy New Year Cards. The troupes that march into Zion Gate express IMHO the expectation for the termination of the Diaspora Era. In those days it seemed contrary to any logic to even expect it, but as we all know the Return of Zion materialized. We can only draw encouragement from it to the peace in the Middle East …

To Childhood And Back

The painted bottle of Dvorit Ben Shaul and the porcelain six-pointed Star pendant that Dick Ben Dor brought me from Holland on my son’s car at the entrance to our house in the fresh snow, that made me feel like a child and experiment how things look when the known environment becomes odd.

My Hebrew Book in the Snow

I just wanted to see if the colors of the front cover of my Hebrew book fit the colors of the fresh new snow that conquered Jerusalem and brought us blesses silence for 24 hours, because no vehicle dared acting as if business was as usual, oh no...

Lantern in the Snow

My way to celebrate the fresh Jerusalem snow was to take a photograph of one of my son's 3-D folded paper Sukkah lanterns. Pity I couldn't shoot it with the bulb inside so that it would light the way to the nations.

Naomi Tereza Salmon, Light Bulb

Photo of Star of David burning wire in a light bulb is courtesy of its creator, Naomi Tereza Salmon.

20 x 20 cm

It seems to be the only simile of Star of David burning wire in a Light Bulb, which means that it is original. It also conveys the impression that in the future Israelis and Palestinians might live in peace and be a light to the nations.

This is one of about 170 works of 11 photographers from Israel and Palestinian territories at 2001 exhibition: Aspirations Toward a Future in the Middle East

Naomi Tereza Salmon was born in 1965, in Jerusalem, Israel. She studied photography at the Hadassa College in Jerusalem. She lives in Weimar (Germany).

Belly Button

Haifa designer Hayim Shtayer sent me this scan of an invitation flyer to an Israeli Independence Day Party from 2005. We see here a black Star of David surrounding the belly button of an extremely handsome young lady, and as far as I can tell this is the first time ever that a belly button captures the center of our national emblem. Isn’t that something? Shall we add a belly button to our flag?

Copyright: © Hayim Shtayer 2008