Yevu Yashir Sukkah Lampshades at Jerusalem Fair

Yevu Yashir 3D Star of David folded Sukkah Lampshades at Jerusalem Chutzot Hayotzer Art Fair.

Yakov Agam Yizkor Sculpture at the Wailing Wall

My good old friend Yehuda heard about my interest in Stars of David and recommended I'll take a look at Yakov Agam Yizkor sculpture at the Wailing Wall in the old city of Jerusalem.
The sculpture is made from six big white Stars of David lit by gas. The six stars represent the six million holocaust Jewish victims. Between the stars there are the Hebrew letters of Yizkor, the Memorial prayer recited in memory of parents, children, wives or husbands, and martyrs.
When I arrived there at night I couldn't see it so I asked Yehuda on the mobile phone to direct me more accurately and then I saw it but its lighting was off.
A few days later I came back at day light and took a picture of it. I asked the owners of the roof where the sculpture is situated why is the lighting off and they answered it is because of safety problems with the gas.
I wander what Yaakov Agam thinks about this strike…
BTW Yaakov Agam has a special interest in Stars of David and many of his works deal with this symbol. I'd like to publish here more of his brilliant works but they are copyrighted…

Evasive

What you see here is a hexagon inside a Star of David inside a hexagon in a pavement just at Zion Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel.
An Arab door keeper at Dormition Church referred me to this pavement but even when I stood on it I didn't understand that it was a Star of David - I guess it happens to most people who step on it every day. It is easier to grasp it from the air, or from a distant spot, but maybe it is hard to notice it because it is evasive…

Local Symbols

The Star of David is good against a Jewish vampire, but if we tried to use it on a Muslim vampire, it would just make him angry!

This wonderful joke is on the Warners' DVD of The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1967, Directed by Roman Polanski). It shows brilliantly how local are our symbols.
Another example is to try and tell this joke to different villagers in remote places all over the world (like in the Amazons) and to watch how they react to it – I'm sure nobody will laugh, and if some of them will giggle it will be because of the wrong reasons.

Visual Palindrome

This Palindrome picture is copied from Wikimedia where it appears in black and white; I, using Photoshop, added the colors.
The Star of David is a visual palindrome: from every direction it looks the same:
From above as from below
From the front as from the behind
From the right as from the left
This shape expresses the concept that the opposites, any pair of contrasts, are united on a level, which includes them; like breath includes inhaling and exhaling.
The Star of David is the place where it doesn't matter if you are rightist or leftist, rich or poor, at the top of the social ladder or at its bottom.
It is interesting to note that this visual palindrome attracts another visual palindrome - the Roman magic square called sator, where each word can be read the same way from right to left and vice versa, from top to bottom and vice versa. M. Costa in his book about the golden section and Solomon's seal bring a photograph of a whole page of a book from the Middle Ages in which a Star of David surrounds this magic square.
The Star of David attracts also Hebrew verbal palindromes:
The word David (DVD), which appears in the name of this shape
The word Six (Shesh in Hebrew) indicating the number of triangles that surrounds the hexagon, which dwells inside this shape. Shesh is the stem of the word Shoshan (lily), the flower that looks from above like a Star of David. Researcher Uri Ofir claims that the Shoshan is the origin of this shape.
The word Choach (thorn) from the verse in the Song of Songs
"Like a rose among the thorns"

White on Black Star of David

Star of David engraved on a black tombstone 

Wilkiecoco wrote to me:

The photo is part of a series I took one Sunday morning at the Montreal Jewish Cemetery on de la Savanne Street. It is where my father and many other members of my family are buried. The photo is of one of the many headstones marked in the traditional Jewish way of leaving a small stone to commemorate your visit to the grave.

Copyright: Wilkiecoco from Flickr 

Star in daylight sky

Yellow Star of David, outside the Jewish Museum, Amsterdam
Tamara Eden wrote to me:

I simply took it because I liked the starkness of the yellow against the clear sky. It was quite rainy most of the time in Amsterdam so this photo just popped when
I saw it.

Copyright: Tamara Eden from Flickr.