This is such an interesting book! I never gave much thought to Jewish gravestones or what was on them other than the Hebrew names of the deceased plus the birth and death dates.

This book is about the Jewish prohibition on graven images (the second commandment) and how gravestone craftsmen somehow didn't quite follow that commandment. The book goes on to describe and show color photographs of these "graven images" from gravestones, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, in several European countries. Each symbol is explained with a biblical quote and then followed by a more detailed and specific explanation.

The most disturbing picture of the book was of a wall built by non-Jewish students from 15th- and 16th-century gravestones desecrated during World War II. It just served to remind me that gravestone desecration in Jewish cemeteries is not simply a happening of the distant past. ( )