For the last two thousand years, the tattoo has been universally recognized as a sign of shame to the Tribes of Israel and for thousands of years a symbol of everything that is vapid, corrupt and finite about the Gentile world.

Jewish Mayhem Online Magazine

In our holy Torah, in sefer Leviticus (Vayikra) 19:28, it is explicitly written that Jews are not allowed tattoos. Why tattoos are forbidden to Jews exactly is not explained anywhere else in the Torah but the topic is elaborated on in numerous locations in the Talmud, which only compound the gravity of violating this prohibition.

The Levitical prohibition is a non-sensical prohibition in the sense that we do not know why the Creator forbid us from getting tattoos because it is not explained explicitly like in the cases of other laws mentioned. We are able to deduce notions as to the Creator’s reasons, such as that it is an abomination or that it is what the Canaanite nations did in those Biblical times and we had to be different from them, but we do not have a specific, simple explanation. In leu of this law’s simplicity, it is completely fair and proper to deduce and to state that tattoos are utterly and completely not Jewish, or Judaic or Hebraic in any sense or capacity based on the ultimate Jewish source, the Torah.

There have been a few instances in Jewish history and culture that we know of when multitudes of Judaeans were tattooed in such numbers as they are today, but in stark contrast to today’s phenomenon which is by choice, every other time in Jewish history, Judaeans were forcefully tattooed en masse by Gentiles as  sign of shame and a marking of a slave or as a prisoner of war or of a concentration camp. What the Austrians and the Germans did in World War II, was not the first time that Judaeans were hunted down, murdered or gathered up brutally, chained up and shipped off as captives or slaves, and then eventually tattooed. The Romans tattooed designations onto slaves, gladiators and soldiers [1] as a matter of regular practice in the Roman Empire until until around 325 CE, and when Judaea was wiped off of the map by Vespasian and Titus in 135 CE., hundreds of thousands of our great-great-great-X50 grand parents were led off by the Romans in chains into slavery and tattooed with markings to identify the Judaean slaves from the non-Judaean slaves for a Judaean slave was only worth a horse in value.

For the last two thousand years, the tattoo has been universally recognized as a sign of shame to the Tribes of Israel and for thousands of years a symbol of everything that is vapid, corrupt and finite about the Gentile world. In sharp contrast to our past, today we have tens of thousands of Jews around the world getting tattooed with every kind of image under the sun for every reason under the sun and the irony is that so many of them are getting tattoos of Jewish pride style imagery and of Biblical verses, it is simply astounding. This change in behavior and mentality all happened in a span of less than one hundred years.

The people of the book have become the people of the tattoo flash book.

Jews have assimilated so much into the Gentile world in the last couple of century that the origins of modern, electric tattooing  has a Jew by the name of Lew Alberts to thank for it’s evolution and it’s course, ironically. Lew was directly responsible for introducing a wealth of new types of tattoo designs into the variety of tattoo styles and designs that were available such as the black panther for example, at the turn of the century.

Miami Ink

Today on television we see another Jew involved in the tattooing world helping shape it, and his name is Ami James, who is the star of his own hit reality TV series called Miami Ink. When the Miami Ink television show was first aired it became an instant and total success across the world. It was one of TLC’s most highly watched shows attracting between 5-6 million viewers a week and continues to air in syndication worldwide. TLC also capitalized on the success of the show with a Miami Ink Clothing Line and many lucrative licensing deals.

Ami immediately comes across as a pushy, edgy tough guy with a short fuse of a temper and if he didn’t mention that he was Jewish or Israeli, you’d probably never know it based on anything that you see. Ami is a very good artist, a very good tattoo artist and he has a head for business as well which is rare among artists. He wears no visible Chais around his neck, he has no magen davids tattooed on his elbows, he does not have an overt Yiddish or Hebrew accent, and his mannerisms belay nothing Judaic or Israeli.  In other words he looks like a Goy, acts like a Goy, but since his mother is Jewish, he’s a Jew, but you’d never know it using the “You Look Jewish Test.” But don’t immediately assume that just because he seems so sanitized of his Jewishness or his Israeliness on the TV show that he is not proud to be a Jew or to be Israeli, because he is in his own way.  Since actions speak louder than words, Ami already has proven his care for Am Yisrael, when Ami was eighteen he left America and joined the IDF when he did not have too, where he trained and served as a fighter, putting his life on the line to defend Jews in the Jewish State.

Is Ami James a Jew or an Israel to admire? That is for you to decide.

This is a video of a candid interview of Ami James done in NYC .

1. Jones, C.P. “Stigma”: tattooing and branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Journal of Roman Studies, 1987, 77, 139-55: facial stigma represented extreme social degredation.