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 or religious beliefs. It became representative of Zionism after it was chosen as the central symbol for a Jewish national flag at the First Zionist Congress in 1897. By the end of World War I, it was an internationally accepted symbol for the Jewish people and used on the gravestones of fallen Jewish soldiers. The star is the central symbol on the national flag of the State of Israel.
Roots
Unlike the menorah, the Lion of Judah, the shofar and the lulav, the hexagram was not originally a uniquely Jewish symbol. The hexagram, being an inherently simple geometric construction, has been used throughout human history in various motifs which were not exclusively religious. Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem noted how the symbol was found on a Jewish seal in Sidon from the 7th-century BCE, and how it was also found alongside other symbols that were known to not be of Jewish origin. It appeared as a decorative motif in both 4th-century synagogues and Christian churches in the Galilee region. Gershom Scholem writes that the term "seal of Solomon" was adopted by Jews from Islamic magic literature, while he could not assert with certainty whether the term "shield of David" originated in Islamic or Jewish mysticism. Scholem noted how the hexagram star was also found in Hinduism, where it is a symbol of the goddess Lakshmi, and Buddhism, where it is used as a meditation aid to achieve a sense of peace and harmony. Leonora Leet argues though that not just the terminology, but the esoteric philosophy behind it had pre-Islamic Jewish roots. She also shows that Jewish alchemists were the teachers of their Muslim and Christian counterparts, and that a way-opener such as Maria Hebraea of Alexandria (2nd or 3rd century CE; others date her earlier) already used concepts which were later adopted by Muslim and Christian alchemists and could be graphically associated with the symbolism of the upper and lower triangles constituting the hexagram, which came into explicit use after her time. The hexagram however only becomes widespread in Jewish magical texts and amulets (segulot) in the early Middle Ages, which is why most modern authors have seen Islamic mysticism as the source of the medieval Spanish Kabbalists' use of the hexagram. The name "Star of David" originates from King David of ancient Israel.
Use as Jewish emblem Only around one millennium later, however, did the star begin to be used as a symbol to identify Jewish communities, a tradition that seems to have started in Prague before the 17th century, and from there spread to much of Eastern Europe. In the 19th century, it came to be adopted by European Jews as a symbol to represent Jewish religion or identity in the same manner the Christian cross identified that religion's believers. The symbol became representative of the worldwide Zionist community after it was chosen as the central symbol on a flag at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, due to its usage in some Jewish communities and its lack of specifically religious connotations. It was not considered an exclusively Jewish symbol until after it began to be used on the gravestones of fallen Jewish soldiers in World War I.
History of Jewish usage
Early use as an ornament
The hexagram does appear occasionally in Jewish contexts since antiquity, apparently as a decorative motif. For example, in Israel, there is a stone bearing a hexagram from the arch of the 3rd–4th century Khirbet Shura synagogue in Galilee. It also appears on a temple on Bar Kokhba Revolt coinage which dates from 135 CE. Originally, the hexagram may have been employed as an architectural ornament on synagogues, as it is, for example, on the cathedrals of Brandenburg and Stendal, and on the Marktkirche at Hanover. A hexagram in this form is found on the ancient synagogue at Capernaum. The use of the hexagram in a Jewish context as a possibly meaningful symbol may occur as early as the 11th century, in the decoration of the carpet page of the famous Tanakh manuscript, the Leningrad Codex dated 1008. Similarly, the symbol illuminates a medieval Tanakh manuscript dated 1307 belonging to Rabbi Yosef bar Yehuda ben Marvas from Toledo, Spain.
Kabbalistic use
A hexagram has been noted on a Jewish tombstone in Taranto, Apulia in Southern Italy, which may date as early as the third century CE. The Jews of Apulia were noted for their scholarship in Kabbalah, which has been connected to the use of the Star of David. Medieval Kabbalistic grimoires show hexagrams among the tables of segulot, but without identifying them as "Shield of David". In the Renaissance, in the 16th-century Land of Israel, the book Ets Khayim conveys the Kabbalah of Ha-Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria) who arranges the traditional items on the seder plate for Passover into two triangles, where they explicitly correspond to Jewish mystical concepts. The six sfirot of the masculine Zer Anpin correspond to the six items on the seder plate, while the seventh sfira being the feminine Malkhut corresponds to the plate itself. However, these seder-plate triangles are parallel, one above the other, and do not actually form a hexagram. According to G. S. Oegema (1996):
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