Quote Originally Posted by gilmore View Post
The fact that a tartan is registered with Scottish Tartan Authority has nothing whatsoever with its being "official" in any way. It merely means that the person who designed it took the trouble to register it.

What makes a tartan official is whether the governing authority of the entity it purports to represent has approved it. In the cases of clan tartans, that authority is the clan chief. In the cases of district tartans, that is the governing body of the state, shire, county, city, etc, of the district that that tartan purports to represent. In the cases of religious denominations that is the governing body of that denomination, and there is none for Judaism, as this tartan purports to represent. It is merely a fashion tartan designated as "Jewish" with an extremely recent provenance that is being marketing by some one who either has no sense of the history of Jewish tartan, or does and chooses to misrepresent it, as well as his tartan, to wit: "the only Scottish born Rabbi living in Scotland, it's 100% Kosher - being a non wool-linen mix..."

Has anyone ever heard of a linen blend tartan that the observant need to be protectd from? I think not.




That's a good point, Gilmore. If there is already an historacal association between a tartan and the Jewish faith or culture, then something like this is more of an insult than official. If there were no tartan historically associated, then maybe it could become generally accepted; especially if it were recognisable to those in the faith or culture. Everything starts somewhere...

It's not a tartan, but I seem to recall a discussion of a certain color of kilt being associated with Buddhism because of the color's symbolic conection; I can't recall the specific details, though. Something on that line.