Page - 45 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

Born under a Lucky Star | 45www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 45–65 Alisha Meininghaus Born under a Lucky Star Interpretations of Woodcuts of Pseudo-astrological Birth Amulets from German-Jewish Printing Houses in the 18th Century Abstract This article examines illustrations of the zodiac signs on birth amulets from Ger- man-Jewish printing houses from the 18th century. These woodcuts are part of a long tradition of astrological references in Jewish art and literature. However, the amulet texts themselves do not contain any astrological topics. What, then, is the relationship of the woodcuts to the text and to the function of the amulets? By contextualizing the images with other contemporary traditions of illustration, this article provides three interpretation models which can explain the choice of the zodiac signs on the amulets. Keywords Woodcuts, Amulets, Zodiac Signs, Astrology, Judaism, Magic Biography Alisha Meininghaus is a doctoral candidate in the Department of the Study of Religions at the Philipps University of Marburg. Her dissertation focuses on German-Jewish birth amulets in the 18th and 19th centuries. She is a fellow of the Leo Baeck Programme of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the Leo Baeck Institute London and is an associate member of the collaborative project “Dynamiken religiöser Dinge im Museum” (REDIM). Astrology and Amulets Astrological ideas are certainly not the first association that comes to mind when thinking about traditional Judaism.1 However, when one looks at ob- jects that originate from the early modern tradition of the German Jews, nu- 1 My sincere thanks go to all the individuals and institutions mentioned in the captions for kindly providing the photographs. DOI: 10.25364/05.7:2021.1.4