Hamsa
An open hand, often with an eye in the palm, that Jews wear and hang in their homes as an amulet against the evil eye, an amulet they share with Muslims in North Africa and the Middle East.
Meaning
The hamsa is a hand-shaped amulet, drawn sometimes like a real hand and sometimes symmetrically, with a second thumb in place of the little finger. It is also called the hand of Miriam, after Moses’ sister, and the hand of Fatima, after the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter; khamsa is Arabic for “five”. Jews have used it to call on the hand of God, or to turn away the evil eye with the eye in its palm. Some hamsas carry fish, after a teaching in the Talmud (Berakhot 55b) that the descendants of Joseph are protected from the evil eye as fish are covered by the sea; others carry the Star of David, the Shema or a blessing for the home. In Israel it is on necklaces, keychains and walls, as common there as the Star of David, according to My Jewish Learning. Muslims use the same hand, as the khamsa.
Origin and history
Where the hamsa began is disputed. It has been read as a Jewish, Christian or Islamic amulet and as a pagan fertility sign, My Jewish Learning reports, and when Jews took it up is unclear, though it is a Sephardic symbol. Amulets sit uneasily in Judaism, because the Bible forbids magic and divination, but the Talmud mentions them several times. The British Museum describes hand amulets in the Middle East and North Africa as a belief that goes back millennia, used by Muslims or Jews against the “eye of envy”. The Jewish Museum in New York has a 19th-century Moroccan Hanukkah lamp with a hamsa at the centre of its backplate.
At weddings
In some Sephardic communities a bride may wear a hamsa at her henna ceremony, when she is decorated with henna before the wedding, as protection against the evil eye.
East and West
An outstretched hand was thought to stop the evil eye, the Encyclopaedia Judaica explains. It records that a metal amulet in the shape of an open palm, with blue paint, is still widely used against the evil eye in Mizrahi (“Oriental”) Jewish communities, while among Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews the custom is to follow any praise with keyn ayen hore, “may there be no evil eye”.
See also
Khamsa, Star of David, Menorah, Chai, Hanukkiah, Tablets of the Covenant.
Sources
- What Is A Hamsa?, My Jewish Learning, article
- Pendant, amulet (hand of Fatima or khamsa), RRM46563, The British Museum, Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World, object description
- Accumulations: Hanukkah Lamps (exhibition release), The Jewish Museum, New York, exhibition highlights
- Evil Eye, Encyclopaedia Judaica, via the Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)
Last reviewed September 24, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research