The Mousetrap

Photo is courtesy of artist Tsvi Nadav Rosler and it shows the yellow badge as a mousetrap.
Size of painting: 40x40 cm.
Tsvi Nadav Rosler was born in Belgium in 1937. He learned graphics in the Art Academy in Antwerp and worked for 35 years in the Israeli TV Educational Channel as the director of the art department. Tsvi showed his works in many group and solo exhibitions.
Copyright: Tsvi Nadav Rosler, 2007

Yuval Caspi, an Arab with a Purple Mustache

Yuval Caspi showed this impressive work, titled an Arab with a Purple Mustache, on the Yavne exhibition of Israeli artists painting Magen David, last May; curator was Roni Reuven.
The work is on laminated wood and it is an homage to famous Israeli painter Rafi Lavi who started the trend of painting on laminated wood. Also, there’s a Magen David drawn in a very thin line, which reminds us of Rafi Lavi’s Magen David. The Star of David surrounds an Arab with a purple mustache, a kind of a joke about the name of Rafi Lavi’s exhibition titled an Arab with a purple mustache, in which there was no such Arab. Yuval said in an interview with Eli Eshed
(In Hebrew) that the Arab in this work seems angry because he represents the fear of the West from the Muslim Fundamentalists that want to kill us all.
copyright: Yuval Caspi 2007

Dome of the Chain, Old Jerusalem

I heard about this Muslim hexagram from the 7th century C.E. about a year ago but couldn’t get hold of its photo, and now here it is, courtesy of generous hoyasmeg, who published it on Flickr under “Creative Commons License”, which lets me publish it without asking for a written permission.

What we see here is a small white hexagon inside a larger black hexagon inside a white filled-hexagram, and a white empty-hexagram (only contours), inside a reddish hexagon surrounded by white-black-white-black hexagonal frames. It is old but it looks new.

I reckon this artifact causes some headache to Muslims who are not history experts: they might think this is a Star of David – and ask what is this Jewish main symbol doing in a Muslim sacred place, and why on the floor, where people might walk on it?

P.S.
Chris Josephson:
The time was January 1965 and it was the first trip to Israel... Upon entering the Temple Mount, we were met by a Christian Arab eager to be our guide. He assured us he could point out things usually missed by tourists. Later trips to the Temple Mount attested to the truth of that statement!

Paul Kor

Artist Paul Kor(1926- 2001) made a series of six paintings dedicated to the memory of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. The series shows a girl who is lead to the death camp. In the sixth painting there’s a yellow badge on the cap of her doll that sits in the ashes in front of the death trains.

Saddest Day

Photo of black Star of David on a gray background (with a sad Jew inside it) is courtesy of my favorite graphic designer, Jenni Gottschalk. 

Five misfortunes befell our fathers ... on the ninth of Av. ...On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the [Promised] Land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured and the city [Jerusalem] was ploughed up. -Mishnah Ta'anit 4:6

Copyright: Jenni Gottschalk 2007

Portraits of Holocaust Children

Photo is courtesy of artist Julie Baer who created a series titled 

souls: portraits of Holocaust children

Copyright: Julie Baer 2007

Julie Baer, Nuthatch

Photo of White Breasted Nuthatch with Stars of David on the upper corners of the painting is courtesy of artist Julie Baer, New Jersey-born children's book author and illustrator.
2001, 18" x 14", mixed media gouache on wood.
On her website I read that 

Viewing nature as a gate to the spiritual realm is a thesis running through my work. 

Copyright: Julie Baer 2007