STAR OF DAVID; WHY I WEAR IT

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In 1217, France ordered the Jews should wear a “wheel” on their outer garment but shortly afterward the order was rescinded.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 17^th 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)

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