Crystal Glass

Frankie Fox Jones, torch working crystal glass artist from Atlanta, Georgia, made some amazing Stars of David. She is a staff member of Frabel Galleries. In one of the three works I saw there is a Chai inside the Star and in another there's a Menorah. The height of each work is approximately twelve inches. The Stars of David Frankie Fox Jones created symbolize "strength and resilience of the Jewish people", hope and promise.

Hans Godo Frabel, who is one of the most influential glass artists in America, founded Frabel Galleries. He is famous for sculptures that make ordinary things look extraordinary.  Frankie Fox Jones surely walks in his footsteps.

Nostra Aetate

Today I got a Google Alert that referred me to a report written by Rabbi Matthew J. Eisenberg (president of Greater Cleveland Board of Rabbis) about an interfaith meeting with Catholic Reverend Richard Gerard Lennon at the St. John Cathedral.

 

"On the ceiling, just above the altar, is a beautifully carved menorah, and on the other side, is a Magen David (Star of David) carving with the word “adoration” below it".

 

The meeting proved that ties between Jews and Catholics are getting better and better since

"The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) made sweeping theological changes culminating in the Nostra Aetate (In Our Day) document. It condemned all forms of anti-Semitism and called upon the Catholic Church to eliminate negative references to Judaism in its liturgies and catechetical texts".

It seems that the Star of David was drawn on the ceiling of the St. John Cathedral is part of the above mentioned new policy and that in this case the symbol represents Judaism (and not Israel, as in most anti-Semite cartoons).

 

A Kosher Conspiracy

The New Statesman published on the front cover of its January 2002 issue a gold Star of David standing on the center of a Union Jack above the headline "A Kosher Conspiracy". Inside there were two articles about this subject investigating the influence of pro-Israel lobby on British media.

The leadership of Anglo Jewry as well as Jewish and non-Jewish academics and politicians protested thinking this cover was a distasteful example of growing anti-Semitism in Britain.

Peter Pulzer, former Professor of Political Science and Modern History at Oxford University, suggested a test to check whether a certain statement is a legitimate criticism or an anti-Semite criticism. The New Statesman clearly failed his test. 

Pink Repression

In an article about Symbols of the Gay Movement there's a paragraph about the Gay Jews in the Nazi concentration camps who were forced to sew pink Stars of David on their clothes. 

My impression is that this piece of information is so repressed that when you search the keywords "pink Star of David" on Google images you get about 300 results most of them are gift items and not even one result that matches the intention behind this query. I believe the creators of these gifts weren't acquainted to the historic meaning of their labels; maybe if they knew they would have made their gifts in other colors or changed the labels of their products.

Elizabeth Olson wrote in the New York Times on January 4, 2003 about The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum decision to focus exhibitions on other groups beside the Jews, beginning with homosexuals. These other groups include handicapped, Gypsies, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and Jehovah’s Witnesses. This first exhibition was entitled "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, 1933-1945".