STAR
OF DAVID―WHY I WEAR IT
Hugh
Fogelman
In
the local Christian community, I proudly wear the Star of David around my neck
simply as DEFIANCE.
This act of defiance is something personal within me. I realize that Christians
do not understand and only think this Star around my neck is simply a Jewish
symbolism acknowledging my Jewishness.
When
I proudly wear my Star of David, I am immediately reminded of the Jews in
Christian Europe who had to forcibly wear this Jewish mark on their clothes, or
be put to death. In Christian Europe, this mandate or death goes back to 1215
CE and ran to the start of the Holocaust in 1939.
Pope
Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, said;
“In several
provinces, a difference in vestment distinguishes the
Jews from the Christians; but in others, the confusion has reached such
proportions that a difference can no longer be perceived. Hence, at times it
has occurred that Christians have had sexual intercourse in error with Jewish
women and Jews with Christian women. The crime of such a sinful mixture shall
no longer find evasion or cover under the pretext of error, we order that the Jews of both sexes, in all
Christian lands and at all times, shall be publicly differentiated from the
rest of the population by the quality of their garment.”
In 1215, the Pope
decreed that hence-forth, all Jews were to display prominently on their breasts
the Yellow Badge
of Shame.
In 1217, France
ordered the Jews should wear a “wheel” on their outer garment but shortly
afterward the order was rescinded. However, in 1219 King Philip Augustus
ordered the Jews to wear the badge, apparently in the same form. The circular
badge was normally to be worn on the breast; some regulations also required
that a second sign should be worn on the back. At times, the “sign” was placed
on the bonnet or at the level of the belt. The badge was yellow in color, or of
two shades, white and red.
Numerous church councils, 1227-1254, reiterated the
instructions for wearing the badge, and a general edict for the whole of France was issued by Louis IX (Saint Louis) on June 19, 1269. The Christian councils later endorsed this
edict in 1284.
In 1221–1222, the Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen ordered
all the Jews of Sicily to wear a distinguishing badge of bluish color in the
shape of the Greek letter “t” and also to grow beards in order to be more
easily distinguishable from non-Jews. The badge here took the form of a
circular yellow patch to be worn on a prominent place on the outer garment -
for the women, two blue stripes on the veil. The recommendations of the
Catholic Lateran Council were repeated in England, March 30, 1218.
Wearing the “Badge” was compulsory from the age of
seven. This was “so
that those who were thus marked would be recognized from every side.” With some
variations, the wearing of the “Yellow Badge” was enforced in Hungary, Poland,
Germany and in other
countries of Europe. There were some places
where the rulers and princes of the Church were filled with an even greater
ardor to put the mark of Cain on the Jews. For example, in addition to the
“Yellow Badge,” the Diocesan Council in 1229 ordered Jews to wear the “Jedenhut” hat, shaped like a cone dunce cap (later to be
known as the “Jew Hat”).
In 1253, the order to wear the badge was renewed by
Henry III, who ordered the “Badge” to be worn in a prominent position. In Germany and the other lands of the Holy Roman Empire, the pointed hat (a form of a dunce
hat) was first in use as a distinctive sign. The church councils held in 1267
required the Jews of Poland and Austria
to wear not a badge, but the pointed hat characteristic of Jewish garb.
In
1264, Poland followed suit
and Vienna in
1267. This cone shaped hat was designed to make the Jew appear ridiculous and
an object of scorn. It worked! The obligation to wear the Badge of Shame was
reenacted by the secular authorities in Spain
shortly after the promulgation of the decrees of the Catholic Lateran Council,
and in 1218 Pope Honorius III instructed the archbishop of Toledo to see that it was rigorously
enforced. Sporadically, this law was enforced in Aragon
in 1228, Navarre in 1234 and
Portugal
in 1325.
In 1268 James I of Aragon exempted the Jews from
wearing the badge but required them to wear special clothing. In 1301, in Mohammedan
countries, Jews were required to wear yellow turbans. This identification was later ordered to all
“infidels” who included Christians. The object was to isolate the “unbeliever”,
to brand them as an enemy of Mohammed, to keep them exposed to the public eye -
and to discourage Mohammedans from religious, social and cultural contact with
them. In Christian Europe, the various Church Councils were fearful that many
Jews might be mistaken for Christians and therefore, succeeding in having
“carnal commerce” with the followers of Jesus. To prevent this, the Provincial
Council of Ravenna in Northern Italy, in 1311,
decreed that Jews should wear a wheel of yellow cloth on their outer garments
and their women a like wheel on their heads, so that
they may be distinguished from Christians.
In 1275, England's
Edward I stipulated the color of the badge and increased the size. A piece of
yellow taffeta, six fingers long and three broad was to be worn above the heart
by every Jew over the age of seven years. In England, the badge took the form of
the two Tablets of the Law, considered to symbolize the Old Testament.
A church council held in Budapest in 1279 decreed that the Jews were
to wear on the chest a round patch in the form of a wheel.
In 1360 an ordinance of the city of Rome required all male Jews, with the
exception of physicians, to wear a coarse red cape, and all women to wear a red
apron. The ordinance was revised in 1402. In 1397, Queen Maria of Spain, ordered all the Jews in Barcelona, both residents and visitors, to
wear on their chests a circular patch of yellow cloth, a span in diameter, with
a red “bull's eye” in the center. They were to dress only in clothing of pale
green color—as a sign of mourning for the ruin of their Temple, which they
suffered because they had turned their backs upon Jesus—and their hats were to
be high and wide.
In Castile,
Spain,
Henry III yielded in 1405 to the demand of the Cortes and required even his
Jewish courtiers to wear the badge. As a result, the Jews were ordered in 1412
to wear distinctive clothing and a red badge, and they were further required to
let their hair and beards grow long. The successors of Henry III renewed the
decrees concerning the badge. In 1474, the Church sought to impose upon the
local Jews a round badge of other than the customary form. In the period before
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain
in 1492, the wearing of the Jewish badge was almost universally enforced.
The badge was imposed for the first time in Augsburg, Germany,
in 1434. In 1530, the ordinance was applied to the whole of Germany. In the
course of the 15th century, a Jewish badge, in addition to the Jewish hat, was
introduced in various forms into Germany. A church council, which
met in Salzburg
in 1418, ordered Jewish women to attach “bells” to their dresses so that their
approach might be heard from a distance.
In Augsburg
in 1434 the Jewish men were ordered to attach yellow circles to their clothes,
in front, and the women were ordered to wear yellow pointed veils. Jews on a
visit to Nuremberg
were required to wear a type of long, wide hood falling over the back, by which
they would be distinguished from the local Jews. The obligation to wear the
yellow badge was imposed upon all the Jews in Germany
in 1530 and in Austria
in 1551.
As late as in the reign of Maria Theresa (1740–1780) the
Jews of Prague were required to wear yellow collars over their coats. The turning
point came with the order of Pope Paul IV in 1555, which inaugurated the ghetto
system. This enforced the wearing of the badge and enforced until the period of
the French Revolution.
In Rome, as well as in
the Papal States in the south of France, it took the form of a
yellow hat for men, a yellow kerchief for women. In the Venetian dominions the
color was red. Jewish shops had to be distinguished by the badge. From the 17th
century, there were some regional suspensions of the distinctive sign in Germany, as also for the Jews of Vienna in 1624
and for those of Mannheim
in 1691. It was abrogated at the end of the 18th century with Jewish
emancipation. Thus on Sept. 7, 1781, the yellow “wheel” was abolished by
Emperor Joseph II in all the territories of the Austrian crown.
In the Papal States in France the yellow hat was abolished
in 1791 after the French Revolution reached the area, although some persons
retained it until forbidden to do so by official proclamation. In the Papal
States in Italy,
on the other hand, the obligation was again imposed as late as 1793. When in
1796–1797 the armies of the French Revolution entered Italy and the
ghettos were abolished, the obligation to wear the Jewish badge disappeared. It took the French Revolution
of 1789 to grant Jews their simple rights as human beings. The Revolution
abolished the “Badge of Shame,” which it considered to be not the shame of the
Jews, but of Europe. The example of France quickly led to its abolition everywhere
in Germany, Austria, Italy and other Christian counties.
In the 17th century, to encourage Jews to return to England,
Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell ordered the “Badge of Shame” to cease to exist.
One would have thought that the conscience-stricken world had seen at last the
end of the “Badge of Shame.” But NO!
On
October 24, 1939, the Nazis, liking the
Christian idea of distinguishing who to abuse, ordered that every Jew in
Wloclawek, Poland, was to wear a distinctive sign on the back in the form of a
yellow triangle and applied to all Jews, without distinction of age or sex.
This device was rapidly adopted by other commanders in the occupied regions in
the East and received official approval, in consideration of the anti-Semitic
sentiments prevailing among the local Polish Christian public, which received
the new German measure with enthusiasm.
Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany resurrected it on September 19, 1941.
All
Jews in Germany
and the rest of Nazi-occupied Christian Europe, who were over the age of six,
were forced by law to wear this “Christian” Badge. The yellow badge was to be
worn on their coats and also as an armlet. However, this time, this badge had a
new design ― a “Magen David,” the Jewish Star
of David, and in its center the word “Jude” (Jew) appeared.
For over 700 years, Christians made Jews to appear as a
ridiculous group of people, less human than they and an object to be laughed
at, ridiculed and scorned. No human being should ever be forced to endure such
punishment, scorn and ridicule.
Over 2,000 years of misery were brought upon the Jews primarily
because of one unknown Christian author, whose work is known as the Book of
Matthew. This writer incorrectly, told the world in his biased New testament book,
that the Jews were solely responsible for the death of Jesus. And the Christian
world believed it.
Adolph
Hitler loved the mantra found in Matthew; and to the world at the passion plays
of Oberammergau
in 1942, he proudly proclaimed for all to hear:
"his blood be on us and our children....[Matthew 27:25], maybe I am
the one who must execute this curse... I do no more than join what has been
done for more than 1,500 years
already. Maybe I render Christianity the best service ever!"
Christians should be proud! Their consistent sordid
history of hatred, ridicule and death to the Jew, only made Hitler's job
easier! And let's not forget the 10 crusades with Jerusalem streets running
with the blood of Muslims killed by Christian swords; the inquisition; burning
of witches and riding at the head of the Klu Klux Klan.
"It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave
with the least sense and the greatest cruelty." -Ilka Chase (1900-1978)
Copyright © 2004, Christianity-Revealed. All rights reserved.
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