If you've ever read James A. Michener's "The Source", there's an interesting section about the swastika & the Jews (irony in it's purest form): "...but no Rabbi Asher saw what his stonecutter was making: a linked series of plain crosses whose ends extended at right angles, forming a kind of heavy, squarish wheel, and as soon as the rabbi saw this motif he visualized its effectiveness as a frieze for teh inner walls of the synagogue, for the inherent movement of the wheel teased the eye forward from one point to the next.
"Perhaps we could use a line of them? Around the wall?" Asher ventured to suggest.
"That's what I was thinking," the stonecutter growleld.
"What is it?"
"I saw it in Persia. A running wheel."
"What's it called?"
"Swastika." And in this manner the notable design, common throughout Asia, became virtually the symbol of the Galilean synagogue, for all visiting rabbis who saw the effective frieze wanted swastikas for their building, too."
