Grigorescu, Felicia: Forme de artă în cimitire evreieşti din nord-vestul Romaniei (Satu Mare, 2013)
Glosar de termeni
tombstones of pious women (Pic. 45). This symbol can be also placed in a domestic register, as it is connected to the lighting of the Sabbath candles, which was performed by the woman, then or at other feasts. This appears to be the reason of using it as ornament on women’s tombstones. The symbol can be discreet, simply carved in stone, or can be a low relief executed in close connection to the Biblical description. An often encountered representation in North-West Romania is the menorah with arms that are look like vegetal spindles. The menorah also frequently appears with a smaller number of arms - five, three (Pic. 44) - or even on one single foot, especially in the rural cemeterial art. As the carvers of Jewish funeral monuments practiced a naturalistic art, in their attempt of representing the image as exactly as possible, the candlestick sometime appears with the flame on the top. The menorah is a symbol so close to the Jewry, that, although it has deep religious connotations, it was also used as an ornament on civil buildings. We can find a menorah of large dimensions of this kind, flanked by a pair of lions, on one of the representative buildings of Oradea, known as the Ullmann Palace, the work of the architect Lobi Ferenc, built in Viennese Secession style, finished in 1913. This ceramic menorah, executed in the Zsolnay factory, with bronze-coloured enamel, is a bas-relief on this building’s bay-window. The symbol of the menorah is so representative in Judaism, that researchers have launched the hypothesis of its appurtenance to the iconographic repertoire of the Jewish emblems108. The Star of David. Known also by the name of Magen David, the Shield of David, the Seal of Solomon, the hexagram, or the six-pointed star, it is one of the most frequent Jewish symbols of the modern Jewish history. The symbol is made of two overlapped equilateral triangles, one angle downwards, and the other upwards, having multiple connotations in several cultures and philosophies109. This symbol is considered today the emblem of Judaism, being represented on Israel’s flag110. Although its frequency in the Jewish symbolism is high, the oldest representation known up to today as a Jewish symbol dates back to the 6th century B.C, on a seal from the ancient Israel111 112. The presence of the symbol at the synagogue of Capernaum (2nd, 4lh century)11- is significant as a decorative geometric motif in a frieze next to a pentagram. It was assimilated and used as an identitary Jewish symbol beginning with the 14th century, when the Jews of Prague were granted the privilege of having a flag of their own, on which the Star of David would appear. In the following centuries, the symbol was to be absorbed by more and more European Jews. In a time of sad remembrance for the Jews - the pre-Holocaust in several European countries - the symbol was compulsory for the Jews, who had to wear it on the chest or on the arm, as a sign of discriminatory identification. 108 Dan Jaffé, Les synagogues dea amei-ha aretz: Hipothéses pour l’histoire et archéologie, http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Journals/sr/issue/32-l-2/jaffe.pdf, p. 66, (From now on: Synagogues...), with references to Simon, 1962, and Levine, 2000 109 Chevalier, Gheerbrant, D.S., voi. II, p. 126-128 110 Ibidem, p. 94 111 Ibidem 112 Ibidem 129
