The yellow badge (or yellow patch), also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism. In both Christian and Islamic countries, persons not of the dominant religion were intermittently compelled by sumptuary laws to wear badges, hats, bells or other items of clothing that distinguished them from members of the dominant religious group.
The yellow badge that was compulsory in the Middle Ages was revived by the German Nazis.
Read more about Yellow Badge: Timeline
Famous quotes containing the words yellow and/or badge:
“The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.”
—Li Po (701–762)
“Signor Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances.
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)