This issue Jewish Mayhem “tattoo mayhem” is of Magen David Tattoos. More and more Judaens around the world are getting tattoos on their bodies despite the clear Biblical prohibition against them. Many Judaens are getting Magen David designs or designs that incorporate the star because to them the symbol represents being Jewish, or a Judaen more properly. These tattoos are not done out of spite but rather out of love and the desire to affiliate with their identity intimately
The funny thing about this, or the sad thing about this, depending on who you ask, is that while the Magen David represents being Jewish and the State of Israel in this time in Israelite history, the fact of the matter is that the Magen David has very little to do with the Nation of Israel and the Tribes of Israel historically. There is very little reference of the Magen David in Rabbinic literature and nothing in the Tanach. There is no archeological evidence whatsoever that the Star of David had anything remotely to do with King David even.
How the Star became Judaicized to the level that it has and how it came to even be called the Shield of David, is a similar story to how the name of the exiles from the State of Judea, Judaens, over two millenia came to be called Jews, and Jew-ish. It wasn’t by choice as much as as it happened slowly over time because of external forces. The problem is that Judaens themselves have institutionalized the symbol and myth of the Magen David and words like Jew and Jewish, therefore perpetuating the problem and the myth, instead of using our proper names .
The Magen David is not a very Judaic symbol at all in contrast to the many specific Judaic images that we do have such as the Menorah, the shape of the ten commandments, angels and the symbols of the tribes of Israel, just to name a few better ideas for tattoos. Jews are not supposed to have tattoos however if you are going to get a Judaic tattoo, then get a truly Judaic image.
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.
God is called by many names in Hebrew in the Torah, but the one that is considered the most sacred is known today as the Tetragrammaton, which is Greek for four letters. The tetragrammaton is so holy to observant Judaens will never utter it. Early Christian transliterators incorrectly pronounced it as Jehovah, but later on in the 19th century, the word was retransliterated into Yehweh.
Because Hebrew is read from right to left, the letters making up the tetragrammaton are (from right to left) Yod, He, Vau, and He. In English, it is commonly written out as YHWH or JHVH.
