Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Note on Transliteration
- Introduction: The Dualities of House and Home in Jewish Culture
- PART I IN AND OUT OF THE HOME
- PART II SACRED, SECULAR, AND PRO FANE IN THE HOME
- 3 Reimagining Home, Rethinking Sukkah: Rabbinic Discourse and its Contemporary Implications
- 4 From Sacred Symbol to Key Ring: The Ḥamsa in Jewish and Israeli Societies
- 5 770 Eastern Parkway: The Rebbe's Home as Icon
- 6 From the Nightclub to the Living Room: Gender, Ethnicity, and Upward Mobility in the 1950s Party Records of Three Jewish Women Comics
- PART III WRITING HOME
- PART IV FORUM: FEELING AT HOME
- INTRODUCTION
- RESPONSES
- Contributors
- Index
4 - From Sacred Symbol to Key Ring: The Ḥamsa in Jewish and Israeli Societies
from PART II - SACRED, SECULAR, AND PRO FANE IN THE HOME
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- Note on Transliteration
- Introduction: The Dualities of House and Home in Jewish Culture
- PART I IN AND OUT OF THE HOME
- PART II SACRED, SECULAR, AND PRO FANE IN THE HOME
- 3 Reimagining Home, Rethinking Sukkah: Rabbinic Discourse and its Contemporary Implications
- 4 From Sacred Symbol to Key Ring: The Ḥamsa in Jewish and Israeli Societies
- 5 770 Eastern Parkway: The Rebbe's Home as Icon
- 6 From the Nightclub to the Living Room: Gender, Ethnicity, and Upward Mobility in the 1950s Party Records of Three Jewish Women Comics
- PART III WRITING HOME
- PART IV FORUM: FEELING AT HOME
- INTRODUCTION
- RESPONSES
- Contributors
- Index
Summary
A charm against domination by the evil eye, this is what our Sephardi brethren—and all other people in the lands of the East—believe the image of a hand to be. And therefore they draw this shape over the entrance of their homes in red paint; and they also place on their children's heads the shape of a hand made of cast silver; as if to say that the hand—or this five-fingered shape—will charm the person who tries to put the evil eye onto this child or the dwellers of this house. And also, when two people are fighting together one will raise the five outspread fingers of his hand before the eyes of the other, as if to say that this image will do him harm. (Luncz 1882: 19)
With these words Abraham Moses Luncz (1854–1918), the Lithuanian-born scholar of the land of Israel, expressed his bewilderment upon encountering the ‘strange’ customs of the Sephardim and the Jews from Islamic countries. The ‘five-fingered shape’ he observed ‘over the entrance of their homes’ is known in Arabic and Hebrew as a ḥamsa, literally meaning ‘five’. The folk term ḥamsa has become universal and it is not usually translated into English, although sometimes it may be called the ‘hand of God’ and recently even the ‘hand of Miriam’ (Moses’ sister, who defied Pharaoh's order to kill new born Hebrew boys by hiding Moses), referring to its magical protective properties. As a Jewish symbol it is closely associated with the biblical figure of Joseph (see below). As a Muslim one, it was known as ‘the hand of Fatima’ in reference to Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad revered for her purity. To the Sephardim and members of the edot hamizraḥ in the nineteenth century when Luncz drew attention to the object and its associated beliefs, the ḥamsa must have seemed quite unremarkable. It pervaded everyday life and was a familiar sight in their homes.
Over the next hundred years its status changed dramatically, especially in Israel. Ethnographic evidence suggests that the Sephardim in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries staunchly held on to their belief in the powers of the ḥamsa, but it had largely fallen into disuse by the mid-twentieth century.
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- Jews at Home , pp. 140 - 162Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2010