Star of David

Rare card · No. 18179

The Star of David (Hebrew: מָגֵן דָּוִד, romanized: Māḡēn Dāvīḏ, [maˈɡen daˈvid] , lit. 'Shield of David') is a symbol generally recognized as representing both Jewish identity and the Jewish people's ethnic religion, Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the Seal of Solomon was used for decorative and mystical purposes by Kabbalistic Jews and Muslims. The hexagram appears occasionally in Jewish contexts since antiquity as a decorative motif, such as a stone bearing a hexagram from the arch of the 3rd–4th century Khirbet Shura synagogue. A hexagram found in a religious context can be seen in the Leningrad Codex, a manuscript of the Hebrew Bible from 11th-century Cairo. Its association as a distinctive symbol for the Jewish people and their religion dates to 17th-century Prague. In the 19th century, the symbol began to be widely used by the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, ultimately coming to represent Jewish identity...

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