The Star of David is a well-known symbol of modern Jewish identity and Judaism, also known in Hebrew as Magen David (Shield of David). It is made up of two equilateral triangles and is fashioned like a hexagram.

The hexagram form was initially connected with the titles “Star of David” and “Shield of David” in the 17th century. In the Siddur, a Jewish prayerbook, the appellation “Shield of David” is also used as a nickname for the God of Israel. The star is most known for being the centerpiece of Israel’s national flag.

Unlike the menorah, the Lion of Judah, the shofar, and the lulav, the Star of David was never a uniquely Jewish symbol. The hexagram has been used in a number of themes throughout human history, not only religious ones because it is an important fundamental geometric pattern. The sign was used as a decorative element in Christian churches for many years before it was first reported in a Jewish synagogue.

The sign was acquired from medieval Arabic literature, where it was known as the Seal of Solomon among Muslims until Kabbalists appropriated it for use in talismanic protective amulets (regulate). The name “Shield of David” (and later “Star of David”) may have originated in Islamic or Jewish mystical texts. Before the 19th century, official use in Jewish communities was only known in the Czech Republic, Austria, and maybe parts of Southern Germany, having originated in medieval Prague as one of the numerous heraldic emblems.

The sign began to expand across Eastern European Jewish communities in the nineteenth century, eventually being adopted by Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement. A key motivating force, according to historian Gershom Scholem, was the need to represent Jewish religion or identity in the same manner as the Christian cross-identified Christians. After being chosen as the primary symbol on a flag at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, the emblem became symbolic of the whole Zionist community due to its widespread use and lack of, particularly, religious undertones. It wasn’t until the gravestones of World War I Jewish soldiers that it became recognized as a distinctly Jewish symbol.

The hexagram has occasionally occurred in Jewish contexts since antiquity, probably as a decorative feature. A stone with a hexagram from the arch of Galilee’s 3rd”4th-century Khirbet Shura synagogue, for example, might be discovered in Israel. The hexagram may have originally been employed as a decorative element on synagogues, as it is on the Brandenburg and Stendal cathedrals, as well as the Hanover Marktkirche. A hexagram in this type may be seen in the old synagogue at Capernaum. Maybe it has something to do with the mezuzah in synagogues.

The hexagram was first employed as a possibly significant symbol in a Jewish context in the 11th century when it was used to embellish the opening page of the famed Tanakh book, the Leningrad Codex, which was dated 1008.

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