The National Diamond

Magen David appears as The National Diamond on a work by Artist Chava Gadish who lives in Hadera, Israel.

She wrote to me:

The Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, in which the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, lost his life, affected me drastically, the same way it affected many of us, as Israelis and human beings. For me, his tragic death had a major effect on my artistic work. I continued painting landscapes, but those were different ones – landscapes of different worlds - genesis views, even somewhat surrealistic ones. I left the solid ground of reality, and shifted to a different reality – a virtual one. Quite fast I started painting the “Flight In Space” painting. In this painting a change occurred in my style, and through it I reached a style very different than any before. In recent years, my paintings have elements of floating constructions in a limits-breaking space. My paintings deal with space, natural cyclicality and the endlessness of the universe. To stress the infinity, I use the elements of perspective. The painting technique is oil paints on canvas and plywood

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See more works on http://flickr.com/photos/zeevveez/sets/72157607297432761

Dee Clements

At the Desert Holocaust Memorial in Palm Springs California there are seven bronze statues of Jews standing on a 20 feet marble Star of David (Yellow Badge). Each statue represents an aspect of the Holocaust:

Resistance

Begging for mercy

The boy from Warsaw ghetto

A rabbi praying

A dying man

The memorial was created in 2008 by sculptor Dee Clements (b. 1947) who lives in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

See the photos

Convention of the Children of Buchenwald

Star of David appears on a cancel prepared especially for the Convention of the Children of Buchenwald in 4.4.1995. Picture is courtesy of Dobush from Kfar Aza, Israel.

Zion violin

Star of David from 1922 on a Zion violin bronchure with music notes.  

Copyright: Niza wolfensohn 2008 

From Niza wolfensohn collection

Hexagram and Zodiac

Since I have a hunch that the hexagram is connected deeply to the zodiac (like in the third century Bir Chana mosaic in the Bardo Museum in Tunisia), I started collecting materials about the zodiac and publishing them on a new Blog Pisces, and on another new Blog dedicated solely to Scorpio. Later I hope to cover the other zodiacal signs. In the process of asking people to participate in this project I stumbled upon the Flickr pages of Aaron from Antiquus-Astrology.com who sent me a few six pointed stars from one of his old astrology books. Here’s one drawing:

Mars – ruler of Aries & Scorpio (shown at his feet) – but why is the hexagram hiding his groins?

Zombi

Yellow Badge appears on the chest of a figure in Moshe Givati painting from 2000, acrylic on canvas, 120x130 cm.

Moshe Givati was born in Hadera in 1934 and resides currently in Tel Aviv.

Copyright: Shiff collection, Tel Aviv

Zoom in and see more of Givati’s Magen David works on : http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=givati&w=29001414%40N00

Hillel Kook aka Peter Bergson

Yellow Badge appears on  the cover page of a book about Hillel Kook aka Peter Bergson

(Wyman, David S., Medoff, Rafael. A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust. New Press, 2004. ISBN 1-56584-856-X). 

From David Wyman’s website:

Hillel Kook (known as Peter Bergson) succeeded in shattering the wall of silence that surrounded news about Hitler's annihilation of the Jews.

During World War II, Kook spearheaded an extraordinary campaign of public rallies, hard-hitting newspaper advertisements, and lobbying in Congress that forced America to confront the Holocaust. Whether by mobilizing hundreds of rabbis to march on Washington, or by recruiting Hollywood celebrities such as Edward G. Robinson and Eddie Cantor to support the Jewish cause, Kook displayed an uncanny ability to take a long-ignored issue and propel it to the forefront of public interest.

Picture is courtesy of Rafael Medoff.

Copyright: Wyman, David S., Medoff, Rafael 2008