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.

Militant Shield of David

Copyright: Andrew Carton  2006 who published it on Flickr under the title War It Is which alludes to Hezbollah, who forced Israel to draw the sword.
Sometimes we tend to perceive this symbol out of context, but here it is hard to forget that it all started when David fought Goliath.
BTW Hezbollah is more famous than I thought - if you enter search word Hezbollah into Google you get 188,000,000 results...

Good Old Friends

The Menorah was for generations Israel's national emblem - archeologists found a lot more Menorahs than Stars of David in their excavations. Nowadays it seems that the Star of David is more prominent, but still they often tend to appear together, like good old friends...
Picture is courtesy of C. Holden who published it on Flickr and sent me the following:
I took this photo within weeks of purchasing my very first digicam. I wanted to shoot everything I could see. As we were in the Chanukah season my congregation was decorated. I decided to shoot this in order to remember that night. I decided to post it because it represents something about my worldview.

TikkunGer's Star of David

I like this shiny ambience - it glorifies the Star of David and suits its inner meaning...
Photographed by TikkunGer from Flickr (a very catchy WWW-name) who sent me the following:

The photograph was taken last winter, either in late January or early February. I just purchased a digital camera and was entering the world of photography for the first time in my life. I have no real photographic background or experience taking pictures. Anyhow I was learning the different features on my camera and wanted to practice with macro and super macro settings, so I gathered all of the subject items I could find to photograph in my apartment and began snapping pictures. This picture is out of my Hanukiah and is one of my first Judaica purchases, as I'm just recently becoming more involved with leading an observant life. There really isn't much spiritual significance, other than I'm trying to capture my growth as a jew in all sorts of interesting ways including through photography.

Copyright: TikkunGer 2006

Melly's Menorah - Back

Behind this Star of David picture is an interesting Jewish-Identity-story which "baslow" was kind enough to share with me: About the picture: I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish home but no longer practiced the religion by the time I met my wife, who is not Jewish. She still goes to church but, over the years, has changed from Catholic, to Lutheran, to Episcopalian depending on which church in our neighborhood afforded her the most nourishing community. Our children have always been free to choose their own paths with respect to religion and, as a result, they have developed very individual, non-classifiable beliefs. Although they are not Jewish by Jewish law they both consider themselves to have at least one foot in the Jewish community. They have a father who is Jewish and who tells stories of an Orthodox childhood; they have relatives who are Jewish, some of them still Orthodox; and they live in New York City, the capital of Judaism in the United States. They understand very well that they would have been "Jewish enough for Hitler". When the winter holiday season comes around (Christmas/Hanukkah) we usually bring out the old children's books that the kids enjoyed and read them out loud. Sometimes the kids, who have both developed interests in acting, will recite passages and perform episodes in the books. My daughter Ruth has a special affection for "Melly's Menorah", about a Jewish Gopher Girl (I'm not making this up). She especially loves to enact the moment when Melly recoils in horror as her father, cleaning the house in preparation for Hanukkah festivities, obliviously vacuums up all of the Hanukkah cards she has been making.
Copyright: "baslow" from Flickr

Ice Star of David

There's a strong connection between the Menorah and the Star of David. Israeli researcher Uri Ofir claims the Menorah is the origin of this Jewish national emblem. I searched for Menorah on Flickr and got a few hundred results, out of which I chose those that showed the Magen David. This one is surely the most interesting since it is made from ice...

Picture is courtesy of Azyxa who wrote me:

I took a photo of it because it was a beautiful and impressive ice sculpture. No more, no less.