Page - 50 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

50 | Alisha Meininghaus www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 45–65 educated people.14 Therefore, the visually different font was used as marking for the addressees of the text. In contrast to the informative function of the upper third of the prints, the Hebrew texts below were understood as pro- tection against dangers and were addressed not to the user, but to Lilith and other threatening beings. But what do the illustrations on the amulets of this type represent in de- tail? To date I have found no interpretations of the woodcuts by the printers or individual users, and therefore I construct possible attributions of meaning on the basis of similar traditions of illustration. Three of the 12 woodcuts I have worked with, mentioned here only in pass- ing, depict an angel (for a boy) or two angels under a palm tree (for a boy) and a mermaid (for a girl) as well as a man with a long walking staff (for a boy). Five other woodcut pairs all show the same motive, namely a woman in a richly decorated dress with a wreath in her hand (for a girl) and a man dressed in the current fashion15 holding a book (for a boy) (fig. 1a and b). The five pairs of woodcuts are remarkably similar even in their fine detail and as a result they form a coherent group. It seems likely that the figures depict a bride with a wreath and a man reading a religious book.16 These depictions correspond to the typical ideals of marriage for women and of lifelong religious study for men.17 Besides the transmission of these normative conceptions, the woodcuts also visualize the hoped-for effect of the amulets – the growth of the child into a socially conforming adult. This message may have had a positive psychological effect by contributing to the subjective per- ception of the protective effect of the amulet. It is also conceivable that the illustration, like the lower texts on the print, was attributed with agency and not only represented the growing-up of the children but also was understood to cause it. Another positive psychological effect may have been evoked by the man’s modern clothing. That depiction implicitly refers to the successive dissolution of dress restrictions for European Jews at the end of the 17th century and dur- ing the 18th century in the context of increasing political equality. This step 14 See Tamari 2001. 15 The man wears a hat (perhaps a tricorn), a frock coat, under it a waistcoat, a kind of bands and breeches. This corresponds to Central European dress fashion in the 18th century, which Jews were permitted to wear, see Rubens 1967, 178. 16 Wiesemann 2012, 60 also proposes this interpretation. In contrast, Carlebach 2011, 67 sees in the male figure a man reading a pocket calendar. 17 See Sabar 2002, 681.