This blog (by Zeev Barkan) is dedicated to the Star of David, its history, its various meanings and usages in different cultures. It includes thousands of pictures of Star of David, six-pointed stars, hexagrams, Solomon's Seals, Magen Davids and yellow badges,and served as a resource for three books and four art exhibitions.
Picture is courtesy of "ShaRi" who published it on her blog under the title RainBowTaRA.The photos are digital collages done in Photoshop. Funny, when I finished this collage, I noticed for the first time that the crystal lotus made a six-pointed star, although if have used this image quite extensively in my collages!
Picture is courtesy of "Dale" who published it on Flickr. Dale wrote to me that The picture is from the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina. They put up christmas lights each year & as with most holiday displays a portion is set up for haunaka as well.
Star of David Kosher Soap picture is courtesy of Todd Ehlers from Flickr
Hexagram on the roof Picture is courtesy of "Seema K K" who published it on Flickr and wrote in the caption that this shot is from one of the backwater villages in Kerala.
In the Muslim World, the six-pointed star is a Muslim symbol. From Yemen to Egypt to Syria, it was incorporated in Islamic architecture from the first centuries of Islam. David is considered a Muslim prophet (along with Moses and Jesus); the six-pointed star in Islam is also called the Star of David. Last weekend, a Syrian friend invited me to his family home in Homs, Syria's third largest city. We visited one of the city's oldest mosques, located in the labyrinthine souq. Under an archway and down a few well-polished stone steps from the market bustle, black, metal doors opened into the serenity of the mosque. The doors were decorated with a familiar symbol: a repeating Star of the Prophet David.
Symbols are trivial but very dangerous things. For millions of people the Cross is a source of comfort and reassurance. But if it has been held over you or your relatives while they were being burnt, raped or slaughtered, then the Cross is a hated symbol of pain and oppression. The same can be said of the Crescent, the Star and Sickle and... the Magen David. If you are wearing the wrong football shirt in Istanbul there is a serious chance of getting stabbed, and in parts of England having a broken beer bottle shoved in your face. And if you wear a kippa or a hijab in parts of France you run the risk of violence... Religion, Politics or Sport are all often the excuse for mindless thugs to use violence.
