Oh my God, those earrings--are they the Muslim design, whatever it's called?
A quick look in the 1st place I could think of, the printed list of symbols for use with obituaries and available in every day's paper tells me, yes, the star and crescent, that is the familiar Muslim symbol.
I have had this pair of earrings for years. Fifteen? Twenty? They have never been a frequent choice because of the color, an unshiny, almost greenish gunmetal gray. They are thin, inch-and-a-quarter crescent-moon-shaped pendants with a small five-point star hanging from the top horn. Each moon is decorated with a vaguely fruit-looking geometric design. I couldn't say where I bought them but remember I did buy them. They were not a gift. To me they had always been reminiscent of that fairy-tale man-in-the-moon sleepy-time motif. They had come up in my mind today as a possibility for the outfit I'd put on. It was then that the Muslim connection hit me.
I'm a Jew but for the 1st 60-plus years of my life it would never have occurred to me that I might be wearing the Islamic symbol. I grew up in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta where from 1902 until 1932, the public school week was Tuesday through Saturday. Therefore few Jewish families settled there. That was still the case in the 1950s and '60s when I was in school. Although I attended the Temple downtown on Peachtree, the neighborhood ruled, in terms of my identity group. Also, my parents celebrated Christmas and Easter in the secular aspects of those holidays. The only Jewish holiday we celebrated in the home was Chanukah, and even that was limited to reading the prayer and lighting the Menorah. My parents have died, so I've missed the chance to ask them the reason for their choices, but thankfully they held on to their Judaism. They have bequeathed to me a spiritual treasure chest.
The upshot of all this is that for most of my life a Christmas sweater or ornament earrings at the holidays were de rigueur. I thought nothing of it. In my reality, the "Jewish community" didn't exist, until everything changed three years ago. (And how that occurred is another story.) All of a sudden the colors you wear define the camp you're in. Jews do not wear red and green in December. Red's fine; Christians don't have a copyright on the color (although jingle bells and snowflakes--maybe!). For Christians, too, the colors are not insignificant. In a seasonal Sunday-school class I attended last year, someone laughingly but quickly re-framed a woman's royal-blue dress (which was actually pretty close to the color of the Israeli flag, I thought) as "Madonna blue," quickly bringing her within the pale.
All this takes some some thinking about, some careful programming!
So, anyway, I looked up the moon-and-star motif. Yes, the Islamic symbol is known as the star and crescent. No, the motif did not materialize with the Prophet Muhammad. It has featured in various combinations across the world. Like most of our symbols it arose first in a pagan context with the crescent representing, naturally enough, the moon god, and the star, Ishtar. As far back as the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, the crescent and star symbol were found in the environs of ancient Israel, supposedly on Moabite name seals. Coins are a major way we find out about ancient icons. Coins with the star and crescent show up in Byzantium associated with the cults of Mithras and Hecate. Though some scholars think the Muslims took the symbol from the Byzantine empire, others say it was already in use by Turkish states across Asia and by the 400-year-old dynasty and world power that existed in Persia before the coming of Islam. At any rate the star and crescent was not exclusively identified with Islam, as some Byzantine emperors were still using it on their coins during the crusades!
And now, Bing has tons of star/crescent images--including the sleepy man-in-the-moon with star, tattoo patterns, and even crescent-moon Santa Clauses with stars. A Portuguese and a British town include a star-crescent in their coats of arms (although with the crescent on its back and the star hovering above). And of course there's the Shriners' symbol.
And I googled Muslim jewelry but found no star-crescent earrings.
So--will I wear them? I thought I wouldn't, but after working my way through all of this in writing--maybe so! If I'm not confused! And if the place is right! ...But it still may feel weird. Would you? And if you are Muslim, would you be offended? If you think I'm totally neurotic, and if you are a Jew, would you wear a cross? If you are a Christian would you wear a Star of David? What if the symbols were somewhat indeterminate? If you are out of a Christian tradition but not active, would you wear a cross? If you are a Jew but not practicing, would you wear a Star of David? A Chai?
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