Holiday in Hampstead – Day Five – God and Beer
‘God and Beer’, a 2m x 1m panel of printed cotton, was the subject of Esther Fitzgerald’s knowledgeable talk. It came from 18thC Alsace and showed a bucolic ‘genre’ scene of merry-makers and ale-houses, in the contemporary spirit of Rousseau. Much interest lay in the pub-signs, which carried the hexagram, or ‘Star of David’. This was not necessarily a Jewish symbol – historically it had been used by both Christians and Moslems – but Esther made a good case for it, all the same. In the 18thC Alsace was a major centre of French Judaism, and inn-keeping was one of the few trades open to them. And it was a time when the Jewish community was moving out of the shtetlekh into more open society. Why not express their growing status with such lively designs?
