#magenes

[baroque-hashem]

I wear the Magen David for many reasons, but do you know what my proudest reason is? The reason I display it proudly for all to see rather than hide it when antisemitism is skyrocketing across the globe? I wear it because it makes other Jews feel safe. I work in a very popular tourist location, and thus I see people from all over the country (USA) and the world. I wear my Magen David proudly for that older Jewish woman who feels insecure next to my goyish coworkers, so that when she sees me she smiles and shows me her necklace too and says how nice it is to find another member of the tribe way out here. I wear it so that the Jewish couple from out of town can see it and find another Jew in the crowd, someone they know they can trust, someone they can wish a "Good Shabbos" to. I wear it so that the Jewish woman my age can see it and then excitedly show me her Judaica tattoos, thrilled to find another Jew her age who isn't afraid to be openly Jewish.

I am not a Jew with trembling knees. And I want every member of my community to see me and know that they are safe with me, that here is a proud Jew to whom they can go. That is why I wear the Magen David, above all other reasons, so that my fellow Jews feel safe.

[girlactionfigure]

No Jewish symbol is more misunderstood than the Magen David, "The Star of David." A thread on the actual connection between the Magen David & Jewish magic:

Its magical origins are obscured by the English phrase, "The Star of David," which is a poor translation of Magen David. Magen = "shield." It is a symbol of a shield, not a star. Nowhere in Jewish literature do we find the phrase "kochav David." It is the "Shield of David."

Before the modern era, we most commonly find the Magen David in amulets. Since the role of an amulet is to provide protection, and a shield is a sign of protection, they are common in Jewish amulets.

For instance, since a Mezuzah is a home amulet, medieval scribes would often add the "Shield of David" along with names of angels [in the boxes on the left column] to boost its protective powers. Like angels who bestow protection, so does the shield.

In recent articles, Moshe Idel has shown that Nehemiah ben Shlomo ha-Navi, a medieval Jewish mystic, claimed that David's shield was inscribed with Divine names. It was the magic of these "shielding" names that protected him in battle, not his military power.

For Kabbalists, the following verse shows David's reliance on magical, Divine names in battle: "David replied to the Philistine, 'You come against me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come against you in the name of the Yah of Hosts.'" [1 Sam. 17:45] 

One magical name became especially associated with the Shield of David, the name AGLA. Abraham Saba (1440-1508), even claims that AGLA is called Magen David.

This association is likely due to the kabbalistic claim that AGLA is an acronym for the liturgical line, "ata gibor l'olam Adonai," which appears right after a reference to Magen Abraham. Hence this magical name became linked to the Magen, the shield.

By the early-modern period, the Magen David often appears in amulets with the name AGLA written in it (in various styles). The most common use of these amulets was to extinguish urban wild-fires. 

This type of amulet became so popular in 17th-18th C. Germany (among Jews & Christians), that Lutheran theologians, who were extremely anti-magic, had to polemicize against the use of such amulets.

At exactly the same time (early 17th C.), Jews begin to be forced to wear the Magen David as a Jewish ID. While Jews had to wear ID badges since the Lateran Council of 1215, those were commonly a yellow wheel, and never a Magen David. 

This is the earliest depiction of a Jew wearing one, from the early 17th century.

While there is no explicit evidence of such, it is likely that, at least in Ashkenaz, the Magen David became associated with Jews at this time because of its prevalence in popular Jewish amulets. To be a Jew was to have access to protective magic. 

For instance, Wilhelm Schickard, a Lutheran theologian, in his work Tarich (1628, Tübingen), critiques the Jews for this: "The shield of David is the very thing which the most superstitious Jewish nation believes to be strong even against fires."

The Nazis, ostensibly, reversed this association. The Shield of David became a symbol for those bodies that are unworthy of protection.

When the founders of the State of Israel chose the Magen David as the national symbol, they were likely oblivious to this long history. But they could have done worse than choosing a Jewish symbol of protection that is other than military power.

It is unfortunate that right at time of the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel, the phrase "Shield of David"—with all its magical history—became overshadowed by the erroneous phrase, "Star of David."

The Magen David does not need to be a symbol of Israeli military power. For much longer it was associated with Jewish protective magic—a protection that comes not from swords & tanks, but from the Divine.

[ceaseless-exhauster]

Magen David chronicles day 1:

Today was the first day of my ENTIRE LIFE I wore a Magen David necklace in public - surprisingly enough, the only comments I got on it were positive

Highlights:

-young surfer dude going “yo is that a Star of David? Sick, bro”

-old man telling me a wild story about how his daughter went to college in Israel and then ended up marrying a man “so Catholic that his mother grew up next to the Pope”

-young femme saying “I love your necklace, I don’t see them much around here so thank you”

I don’t necessarily expect the positivity to continue to be the only thing that happens (don’t expect it at all in fact), but it was nice today

[nesyanast]

10 times Amy Winehouse was iconic showing off her magen david.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Source

[notaplaceofhonour]

✡️ + 🧿

Available On RedBubble

[itg1rl-xx]

were just girls 🎀

[sandwichesaremyfav]

Me and who!!!

[is-the-fire-real]

Three cercolons. Literally translates to "big circles", cercolons are decorative wall plates and a specialty of Andalusia. These are ceramic and hand-painted. The first two depict the Temple menorah (with seven branches), one in various shades of blue and one in a variety of colors. The other depicts a Magen David lined with leaves and flowers.

All of the golden-colored edging and accents are 24-carat gold. The flowers and decorative edgework are examples of cuerda seca (dry cord), a technique for painting tiles and ceramics which dates to the period of Arabic colonization of Spain.

[pseudo-satisfaction]

[lettersfromthelevant]

Behold, the greatest roast against an antisemite I've seen in a while

[hanukcat]

[girlactionfigure]

[moss-opossum]

I don’t feel like I have any super substantive updates on my patch vest (I’ve been in a pretty bad flareup for a bit), but there are some new additions so I thought I’d share anyway.

Image description: the front of a dark grey denim vest with the arm holes hand-hemmed in red thread. On the left lapel is a large heart-shaped it/its pin surrounded by a cloudy rainbow border. On the chest beside it is an enamel Magen David pin in the colors of the trans flag, beside which is a crocheted watermelon attached with a safety pin. On the left breast pocket is a cross-stitched asexual flag secured with dark purple thread and an acrylic pin of an opossum holding a non-binary heart. On the right breast pocket there is a machine-embroidered sunflower patch, and beneath that is another machine-embroidered patch reading “disabled is not a bad word”, secured by lavender thread. Above the pocket is a genderqueer flag pin, next to that is a cross-stitched patch reading “I mask so I don’t bite you” in all caps with a red border and “bite” in red. Above that is a small holographic pin with a sparkly rainbow heart on it. /end description

Image description: the back of the same vest, with two stenciled black patches, one on each shoulder, each secured by x-shaped stitches in lavender thread. The one on the left reads “queer joy”, the one on the right reads “T4T”. /end description

I love my vest and I love talking about it, so if anyone has questions about any part of it please don’t be shy to ask!

[eye-in-hand]

Made myself a Magen David necklace!

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?