Jewish Blues presents a broad cultural, social, and intellectual
history of the color blue in Jewish life between the sixteenth and
twenty-first centuries. Bridging diverse domains such as religious
law, mysticism, eschatology, as well as clothing and literature,
this book contends that, by way of a protracted process, the color
blue has constituted a means through which Jews have understood
themselves. In ancient Jewish texts, the term for blue, tekhelet,
denotes a dye that serves Jewish ritual purposes. Since medieval
times, however, Jews gradually ceased to use tekhelet in their
ritual life. In the nineteenth century, however, interest in
restoring ancient dyes increased among European scholars. In the
Jewish case, rabbis and scientists attempted to reproduce the
ancient tekhelet dye. The resulting dyes were gradually accepted in
the ritual life of many Orthodox Jews. In addition to being a dye
playing a role in Jewish ritual, blue features prominently in the
Jewish mystical tradition, in Jewish magic and popular custom, and
in Jewish eschatology. Blue is also representative of the Zionist
movement, and it is the only chromatic color in the national flag
of the State of Israel. Through the study of the changing roles and
meanings attributed to the color blue in Judaism, Jewish Blues
sheds new light on the power of a visual symbol in shaping the
imagination of Jews throughout history. The use of the color blue
continues to reflect pressing issues for Jews in our present era,
as it has become a symbol of Jewish modernity.
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