YELLOW STAR
On the day (April 1, 1933) THE NAZIS DECLARED A NATIONAL Boycott of all Jewish-owned stores,
they painted the word Jude (German for "Jew") inside yellow Stars of David on the windows of
Jewish stores. They did so to alert potential Aryan customers that the store they were about to
enter was owned by a Jew. This infamous yellow star, which Jews subsequently forced to sew
in a prominent place on their garments, became the most visible symbol of Nazi antisemitism.
Few people know that it was not the Nazis who created the notion of special yellow badges for Jews;
that distinction belongs to the ninth-century Abbasid caliph Haroun al-Raschid, who ordered Jews
to wear a yellow belt at all times. Some four centuries later, at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215,
the Catholic Church regulated that Jews living under Catholic rule wear distinctive clothing as well.
Fortunately, political authorities subsequently stopped enforcing this regulation.
The Nazis enforced the yellow badge with a vengeance: By 1941, all Jews six years old and up had
to wear on their chests at all times a yellow six pointed star with the word Jude inscribed on it.
In Poland the Nazis issued a warning that Jews, including Jewish-born converts to Christianity,
who do not wear the yellow badge on both the front and back of their clothing would be subject
to execution.
Shalom
