The Star of David (Hebrew: מָגֵן דָּוִד, romanized: Magen David, lit.'Shield of David') is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles See more

Only around one millennium later, however, did the star begin to be used as a symbol to identify Jewish communities, a tradition that seems to have started in Prague before the 17th century, and from there spread to much of Eastern Europe.
In the 19th century, … See more

The flag of Israel, depicting a blue Star of David on a white background, between two horizontal blue stripes was adopted on October 28, 1948, five months after the country's … See more

• In Unicode, the "Star of David" symbol is U+2721 (✡︎).
• Some criminal gangs, including the Gangster Disciples and those affiliated with the See more

Unlike the menorah, the Lion of Judah, the shofar and the lulav, the hexagram was not originally a uniquely Jewish symbol. The hexagram, being an inherently simple geometric construction, has been used in various motifs throughout human … See more

Early use as an ornament
The hexagram does appear occasionally in Jewish contexts since antiquity, apparently as a decorative motif. For example, in Israel, there is a stone bearing a hexagram from the arch of the 3rd–4th century Khirbet … See more

The Jewish Encyclopedia cites a 12th-century Karaite document as the earliest Jewish literary source to mention a symbol called "Magen … See more