Saturday, July 10, 2010

Medal - Info Please

Front: Star of David made from dots
with the Hebrew word Zion inside the hexagon
© Dawn Kosinski

Back: "Saint Christopher Protect Us"
© Dawn Kosinski

Dawn Kosinski sent me the following message to my readers:

When going through my father-in-law's things we found a St Christopher's (Catholic) Metal with a Star of David metal on the back. The Star of David is slightly off center, which makes me wonder if someone just glued it to the back of the St Christopher. I don't know the age but suspect that it is pretty old. Maybe from WW II.

Can you give me any ideas on this

?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I too found a necklace like this in my mother's old things, although hers was gold. I am very curious as to why a Christian saint would be on the same pendant as a Star of David.

Unknown said...

I too have the same medallion from my father. It is in beautiful gold and he wore it every day

jgcarter@att.net said...

I am looking to buy one of these if anyone has knowledge of where it could be purchased.
My brother-in-law had one but the jump ring broke and he lost it.

Anonymous said...

I found one on ebay, in fact two, one silver and one gold, both of which I bought as I am Catholic but my stepfathers family was part Jewish. I have no idea where this came from but I managed to Google an old news story about Frank Sinatra having 100 of such medals made to give to 99 friends, and he did it as a supporter of Israel. Did he popularize it and others followed or was it just doing something others were already doing. Could it be an Italian thing?

Anonymous said...

Here's a reference to Sinatra's creation of such a medal. Here is says he did it out of sympathy for Holocaust victims.
If you go to Google Books and google Sinatra Star of David a reference appears in Terry Teachout's book.