Tag: folklore

A Jewish Monsters and Magic Reading List (in English)

I’ve been building a library of books in English on Jewish monsters and magic. Here are the books I come back to over and over again.

Jews are the People of the Book, right? So it figures that if you want to learn about about Jewish monsters and magic then you might want to grab a few. Over the last couple of years I’ve shared a few versions of a starter list. Over time it’s grown into this list here.

Two things about this list. First, the focus here is on books and articles written or translated into English. There’s lots more great stuff out there in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic but I’m not able to cover that. I can’t do much past basic prayerbook Hebrew. Someday I’m going to fix that.

Second, the folks who’ve asked me for reading lists have done so for their own, and often very different, reasons and have needed very different lists. These have included:

  • Jewish fiction writers, artists, and game designers wanting a better basis than what our synagogues or pop culture have delivered
  • Jewitch practitioners, looking at Biblical divination methods, Sephardi protection charms, or Ashkenazi folk healing methods to add richness to their daily lives
  • LGBT Jews and others with a complicated relationship with Judaism who approach Judaism with a deep love and a DIY attitude
  • women who realized that their grandmothers, or great-great-grandmothers, had a ritual life that never got handed down to them
  • others, like me, that are just nerds for this stuff and find our lives and Judaism enriched by it

Regardless of why you’ve found this list, I hope that you find resources that are useful. If you want a bigger list, I’ve got a LibraryThing list of all the books in my library. All sorts of wild stuff. For the articles, I’m only listing stuff that is easily available free online. Some of my favorite articles aren’t on the list beause they require JSTOR access. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, or want some help finding the right resource leave a comment on the page, or message me on twitter @adnesadeh and let me know what you’re looking for.

Some of the articles I list are posted on Academia.edu. Free registration is required. In most cases the books are easily available wherever you buy books. Most of my links will be to Bookshop.org, which helps you buy new books from local stores, or Alibris, which is a good used-bookstore aggregator site. In some cases, though, your best bet is to go right to the publisher. Some of these are kinda pricey academic books. But most aren’t.

I’m sure I’m going to update this occasionally. So check back. This version is dated April, 18, 2023, one night before the funeral of my father Dr. Joseph Zaientz ז״ל‎.

Update 1. Dec 26 2022. Added two books on legendary figures (the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Ya’aqov Wazana), Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s book on Jewish Meditation, and a video of the Moroccan Tahdid sword ceremony for a brit milah.

Update 2. Dec 30 2022. Added essays on Jewish astrology, Jewish “superstitions” in the 1920’s, ruach ra’ah, the “last” Jewish demon (still actively included in Jewish ritual). and an amazing essay on the anti-demon aspects of Jewish weddings which includes a summary of the three main Jewish anti-demon strategies; fight, bribe, and conciliate them.

Update 3. Small update adding Dr. Sara Ronis’ article on Ashmedai, demon king and sometime Torah scholar, and Rabbi Elli Fischer’s video presentation on how smoking pipes was used to replicate temple incense and used to fight plagues.

Jewish Magic and Monsters 101

Super Fast, Super Fun Intros

Check out Ezra Rose’s one page print & fold zines. They’re free or pay what you want.

Ezra has great art and stickers available too. Check them out!

Articles on Magic

Fast Summaries

Essays

Articles on Monsters

Fast Summaries

Essays

Sources in Translation

Seferia.org – “Sefaria is home to 3,000 years of Jewish texts. We are a non-profit organization offering free access to texts, translations, and commentaries so that everyone can participate in the ongoing process of studying, interpreting, and creating Torah” While not everything at Seferia is translated into English, a lot is. I pretty much live there. Tanakh, Talmud, later writings, dictionaries. Everything crosslinked to commentary. So many wonderful texts. Also check out their Source Sheets, which Seferia users put together on interesting topics. To get you started, here are 5 sources.

  • Deuteronomy 3.11 – “Only [the giant] King Og of Bashan was left of the remaining Rephaim. His bedstead, an iron bedstead, is now in Rabbah of the Ammonites; it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide, by the standard cubit!”
  • Sanhedrin 65b – “Indeed, Rava created a man, a golem, using forces of sanctity. Rava sent his creation before Rabbi Zeira. Rabbi Zeira would speak to him but he would not reply. Rabbi Zeira said to him: You were created by one of the members of the group, one of the Sages. Return to your dust.”
  • Chagiga 16a – “The Gemara returns to discussing the heavenly beings. The Sages taught: Six statements were said with regard to demons: In three ways they are like ministering angels, and in three ways they are like humans.”
  • Berakhot 6a – “In another baraita it was taught that Abba Binyamin says: If the eye was given permission to see, no creature would be able to withstand the abundance and ubiquity of the demons and continue to live unaffected by them.”
  • Otzar Midrashim 2c (alternate version of the Alphatbet of Ben Sira) – “He said to him, “The angels appointed for healing: Sanoy, Sansanoy, Semangalof. When the Holy Blessed One created the first Adam alone, They said, (Genesis 2:18) ‘It is not good for this Adam to be alone.’ They created for him a wife out of the Earth like he had been, and called her Lilith. Immediately they began to challenge each other.”

Books

  • Jewish Magic and Superstition by Rabbi Joshua Tractenberg. Written in 1939, Jewish Magic and Superstition is still the best starting point. It focuses on 13th century Ashkenazi Jewish lore which is as wild as it comes. It’s inexpensive and easily available. JMS is also online at Sacred-Texts.com. Highly recommended.
  • The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism by Rabbi Geoffry Dennis. Exactly what the title describes. Encyclopedic in scope, but very short descriptions. A great gift and great for finding things of interest, but you’ll want more if you want to understand something with any depth
  • Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism by Harold Schwartz. So good. Mostly covers legends up to the Talmudic period and some Zohar. Wonderful writing and great commentary.
  • Sacred Monsters by Rabbi Natan Slifkin. A thoughtful, well sourced, book on Jewish monsters written by a rationalist Orthodox rabbi looking to debunk them. While the concept is a bit ironic, and a bit frustrating for monster fans, it’s a must read book. You’ll get a better price buying Sacred Monsters directly from the publisher, Gefen.
  • Magic, Mysticism, and Hasidism: The Supernatural in Jewish Thought by Gedalyah Nigal. Nigal describes the Baal Shem “wonder rabbis” and their amulets, holy name magic, kefitzat ha-derekh (“shortening of the path” or Jewish teleportation), transmigration of souls (reincarnation), and demonic possession. This one’s harder to get. As of today Alibris has a reasonably priced copy.
  • Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women: Sweetening the Spirits, Healing the Sick by Isaac Jack Lévy and Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt. An amazing exploration of prekante, or charms, in the Sephardic community. If you want to be ready to handle the evil eye, this is the book. Also, this is a must read if you want to learn more about Jewish women’s rituals.
  • A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe By Marek Tuszewicki. Serious discussion of folk medicine in the Ashkenazi community, a tradition that is more magical than medical to our modern sensibilities.
  • Ashkenazi Herbalism. “Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel add a new dimen­sion to our pic­ture of every­day life in the Pale of Set­tle­ment with a high­ly read­able por­tray­al of folk heal­ers, herbs, and med­i­c­i­nal prac­tices.” Great book for a modern practitioner to draw on but its presentation of Askhenazi medical lore is way too sanitized for me. Where are the cures based on wearing a mouse around your neck or eating fried sawdust? Where’s the horse teeth and lead?
  • Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid by Moshe Idel. This is the definitive book on the history of golem in Jewish religious thought.
  • A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz by David Shyovitz. “Analyzing a wide array of neglected Ashkenazic writings on the natural world in general, and the human body in particular, Shyovitz shows how Jews in Ashkenaz integrated regnant scientific, magical, and mystical currents into a sophisticated exploration of the boundaries between nature and the supernatural.” The werewolf article, above, became a chapter in this book.
  • Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism by J. H. Chajes. This is the best academic book on dybbuks. A great analysis of how dybbuks fit into Jewish theology and life.
  • Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge by Esther Hamori. “Hamori examines the wide scope of women’s divinatory activities as portrayed in the Hebrew texts, offering readers a new appreciation of the surprising breadth of women’s “arts of knowledge” in biblical times.” Very readable. Love it.
  • On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture by Mika Ahuvia. “Angelic beings can be found throughout the Hebrew Bible, and by late antiquity the archangels Michael and Gabriel were as familiar as the patriarchs and matriarchs, guardian angels were as present as one’s shadow, and praise of the seraphim was as sacred as the Shema prayer” Fantastic discussion of angels in Judaism.
  • Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia by Sara Ronis. “The Babylonian Talmud is full of stories of demonic encounters, and it also includes many laws that attempt to regulate such encounters. In this book, Sara Ronis takes the reader on a journey across the rabbinic canon, exploring how late antique rabbis imagined, feared, and controlled demons.”Another book that as academic in depth but very readable.
  • Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity by Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked. “Amulets and magic bowls are part of a long-standing tradition of magic in the Near East. They were used to protect the home and inhabitants of the home from evil and disease as well as to arouse love. Texts taken from these items provide insight into the society, religion, and culture of pagans and Jews during the early Christian era which corresponds to that of the Talmudic period.”
  • Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. “Students of mediation are usually surprised to discover that a Jewish mediation tradition exists and that it was an authentic and integral part of mainstream Judaism until the eighteenth century. Jewish Meditation is a step-by-step introduction to meditation and the Jewish practice of meditation in particular.” He’s an amazing writer who was deeply involved in the meditative aspects of Kaballah. And yeah, this is the same person who wrote a commentary on the Serfer Yetzirah (see below)
  • Jewish Astrology, A Cosmic Science: Torah, Talmud and Zohar Works on Spiritual Astrology by Yaakov Kronenberg. I haven’t put much time into Jewish astrology yet so don’t really have the context to evaluate this book. I’ve had it recommended to me by a few folks so want to include it.

Jewish Grimoires and Spellbooks

  • Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan translation. The Sefer Yezirah describes the mystical process by which God created the universe and is traditionally, the text that rabbi’s studied to learn how to make golems. Kaplan’s translation is tiny part of the book, it’s his commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah that makes this a must read.
  • Sword of Moses. Yuval Harari translation. As Harari notes, of the “two Jewish magical treatises – the other being the Sefer ha-Razim (The Book of Mysteries) – that have survived from antiquity in many respects [the Sword of Moses] is the more significant one. It presents a broad assortment of magical practices for accomplishing various goals, all based on the use of a magical ‘‘sword’’ of words, which Moses brought down from heaven.” The link is to a downloadable .pdf from Academia.edu
  • Sefer ha-Razim, The Book of Mysteries. Michael Morgan translation. The Sefer-ha Razim is a “Jewish magical text supposedly given to Noah by the angel Raziel, and passed down throughout Biblical history until it ended up in the possession of Solomon, for whom it was a great source of his wisdom and purported magical powers.” (quote from Wikipedia)
  • Shimmush Tehillim (Magical uses of the Psalms). Attributed to Rav Hai Goan, document by Reuven Brauner. Describes magical uses of the Psalms for protection from demons, protection from miscarriage, and a lot more. The link is a downloadable .pdf from Halakhah.com
  • The Aleph-Bet Book by Rebbe Nachman of Bresolv. Not a spellbook, per se, but tucked in with the Rebbe’s aphorisms on how to live a good Jewish live are a wonderful assortment of segulah (charms).

Beliefs about Death

Jewish Views of the Afterlife by Simcha Paull Raphael. “Jewish Views of the Afterlife is a classic study of ideas of afterlife and postmortem survival in Jewish tradition and mysticism. As both a scholar and pastoral counselor, Raphael guides the reader through 4,000 years of Jewish thought on the afterlife by investigating pertinent sacred texts produced in each era.” Another must read.

Final Judgement and the Dead in Medieval Jewish Thought by Susan Weissman. “Through a detailed analysis of ghost tales in the Ashkenazi pietistic work Sefer Hasidim, Susan Weissman documents a major transformation in Jewish attitudes and practices regarding the dead and the afterlife that took place between the rabbinic period and medieval times.” Ghosts. The walking dead. Here it is folks.

Folklore Collections

  • Lilith’s Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural selected by Harold Schwartz. Great collection from around the Jewish world. Includes stories about Lilith and “The Finger,” one of the inspirations for the Tim Burton film “The Corpse Bride.”
  • Mimekor Yisrael: Classical Jewish Folktales collected by Micha Joseph Bin Gorion, translated [from the Hebrew] by I.M. Lask.
  • Yiddish Folktales translated by Beatrice Weinreich. Includes stories about early modern Jewish monsters including shretelech, who are sprites that, if shown respect and given gifts, will protect the house.

Legendary Figures

In Praise of Baal Shem Tov (Shivhei Ha-Besht: The Earliest Collection of Legends about the Founder of Hasidism) – “In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov is the first complete English translation of the tales surrounding the Besht, a rabbi and kabbalistic practitioner whose teachings bolstered the growing Hasidic movement in the eighteenth century.” He also fought with sorcerers and werewolves, wrote amulets and recommended healing practices.

Without Bounds: The Life and Death of Rabbi Ya’aqov Wazana. “Without Bounds illuminates the life of the mysterious Rabbi Ya’aqov Wazana, a Jewish healer who worked in the Western High Atlas region in southern Morocco and died there in the early 1950s. Impressed by his healing powers and shamanic virtuosity, Moroccan Jews are intrigued by his lifestyle and contacts with the Muslim and the demonic worlds that dangerously blurred his Jewish identity.”

Late Modern period (mid-18th century to the 1920’s)

Og, King of Bashan riding a Unicorn from Aunt Naomi’s Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends

Other Media

There’s a lot of great material out there and a lot of weird stuff that I stay away from. Here are a few bits I know about and want to share. This list is also really short on rabbinic material. I need to fix that. I’ll cover Jewish monsters and magic artists in another posts.

Podcasts

Jewitches – “Talking about all things Jewish witchcraft, mysticism, folklore, magic, and practice. Bi-weekly deep dives into all things magical & Jewish, hosted by Jewitches.com”

Throwing Sheyd – “Better living through Jewish demonology”. 48 episodes deep dive into Jewish demons filled with warm and wisdom. Alan a nd Miriam are great hosts.

Websites

Pulling Threads – Rediscovering the forgotten rituals of Eastern European Jewish Women

Videos

Jewish Monster Hunting – A practical guide to Jewish Monster Hunting. This is my channel. Only one video so far, but it’s a fun one.

Demons in the Talmud and Demons and the Four Cups of Wine at the Passover Seder Sara Ronis

10 Historic Jewish Women Mystics You’ve (Probably) Never Heard of “Are there any Female Jewish Mystics or is Jewish Mysticism just a Boys Club? Join us as we explore ten incredible women Mystics, Martyrs, Mothers, Messiahs, masters of Kabbalah, Educators, Oracles, Patrons, Prophets, Poets and Philosophers who left an unforgettable mark on Jewish History.”

Plagues – Rabbi Elli Fischer. When smoking a pipe became a ritual substitution for burning incense to ward off plague.

Reigning Cats and Dogs: Angelic Animals in the Jewish Mystical Tradition – David Shyovitz

Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture and On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture – Mika Ahuvia

Great Myths and Legends: The Queen of Sheba in History and Legend and Great Riddles in Archaeology: The Ark of the Covenant: Lost, Found, or Forgotten? – Annette Yoshiko Reed. I haven’t watched these yet but they’ve been on my list.

An Expert Explains – How to Make a Golem – Alana Vincent. I havent watched this one either, but it’s been on my list.

The Dybbuk: The Full Original Film and Story

Frieda Vizel, Hassidic tour guide, shows how to do Blei geissen, aka lead-casting and molybdomancy used to discover the source of the evil eye.

Also, check out this twitter post with a video of Iraqi Jewish women performing “Resasay,” an anti-evil eye ritual similar to blie giessen.

Tahdid Sword Ceremony for the Brit Milah in Morocco. Posted by the Jewish Learning Channel. A lot more info is provided by the website https://yalalla.org.uk/ in the article “Jewish Saharans Singing To Birth”

“The word Tahdid comes from hdid, metal, in Arabic, bringing in technologies of metallurgy to protection rituals. The women used to hold the mother and baby ‘hostage’ in the room and barter jokingly with the men who were knocking at the door and begging to come in. Joking negotiations back and forth in Judeo-Arabic were meant to make everyone laugh and ensure that everyone knew where the real power was! Once allowed into the mother’s room, the men sang liturgical poetry in Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew, lightly tapped ritual swords against the walls of the four corners of the room, on the baby’s crib and on the four cardinal points, all the places where the evil spirits are said to hide. They then continued singing mystical poems and murmuring prayers in Hebrew and the women finished with loud yuyus of celebration. Afterwards there is a feast for everyone gathered. This Tahdid, from July 2013, was led by the paytan Jacob Wizman, a student of the famous Rabbi David Bouzaglo. Filmed in Casablanca by Ron Duncan Hart.”

Banim Shovavim, The Wayward Children.

Banim Shovavim are half-demons, children of humans and sheydim. The fear of these “wayward children” inspired Jewish folktales as well as religious rituals.

We (humans) have something that sheydim (demons) want. We have bodies. Sheydim were, according to one story (1), created at twilight on the last day of creation and left unfinished. Because of this they have no physical bodies of their own and can take on whatever form they want (2). This is one of the reasons that we Jews recite psalms when, during the ritual of shmirah, we guard the dead. We want to protect the bodies from being inhabited by sheydim (3). Similarly we have methods for protecting ourselves from being possessed by sheydim (e.g. dybbuks) and for exorcising them if necessary (4).

Another way that sheydim attempt to get bodies is by having a child with a human, either by seducing the human (male or female) or by stealing the male’s seed (sperm) when he masturbates. According to Eruvin 18b. after Cain killed Able, Adam and Eve separated for 130 years. During this period they each had sex with demons resulting in a large number of demon children.

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar said: All those years during which Adam was ostracized for the sin involving the Tree of Knowledge, he bore spirits, demons, and female demons, as it is stated: “And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth” (Genesis 5:3). By inference, until now, the age of one hundred thirty, he did not bear after his image, but rather bore other creatures.

Eruvin 18

We are not Adam and Eve though. The child of normal human and a sheyd is a banim shovavim; half-sheyd (demon) and half-human. The term banim shovavim means comes from Jeremiah 3:14 and means, literally, “wayward” or “rebellious children.” Sheyd believe that banim shovavim can obtain a body as an inheritance from the human parent if they cling to him, particularly when he dies. Traditionally, Jews have been terrified of this. Our religious writings and folklore are filled with maxims to avoid being alone at night and to avoid sexual immorality including (euphemistically) spilling seed. In the modern world, though, its hard to not be a bit sympathetic to the banim shovavim who are children of two worlds and fit in neither.

Banim Shovavim
Collage art by Jack Zaientz, 2022 (5)

The “Tale of Posen” tells one of the classic banim shovavim stories. In the story the banim shovim, who have been living in the cellar of their human father, come into conflict with the new owner of their father’s house after he dies. The story is wild in that the banim shovavim ask for and are granted the opportunity to defend the claim to their inheritance in rabbinic court. They lose their case largely on the grounds that as half-demons they do not have the rights of a human. They are then exorcised by R. Joel, a famous Baal Shem wonder rabbi.

As Joshua Tractenberg, in “Jewish Magic and Superstition” tells the tale….

This occurred in Posen at the end of the seventeenth century. … In the main street of Posen there stood a stone dwelling whose cellar was securely locked. One day a young man forced his way into this cellar and was shortly after found dead upon the threshold. Emboldened by this act the “outsiders,” who had killed the intruder in their subterranean haunt, entered the house itself and began to plague the inhabitants by casting ashes into the pots of food cooking on the hearth, throwing things off the walls and the furniture, breaking candlesticks, and similar pranks.

Though they did no harm to the persons of the inhabitants, these were so distressed and frightened that they deserted the house. A great outcry arose in Posen, but the measures taken by the local savants (including the Jesuits) were not sufficiently potent to oust the interlopers, and the foremost wonder-worker of the time, R. Joel Baal Shem of Zamosz, was sent for. His powerful incantations succeeded in forcing the demons to disclose their identity. They contended, however, that this house was their property and demanded an opportunity to substantiate their case before a court of law.

R. Joel agreed, the court was convoked, and before it a demon advocate, who could be heard but not seen, presented his argument. We may still sense in this graphic account of the trial the dramatic tenseness of the scene, the earnestness of the advocate’s plea, the solemn attentiveness of the three bowed gray heads on the bench, the open-eyed wonder, spiced with a dash of terror, of the audience.

The argument ran in this wise: The former owner of the house had had illicit relations with a female demon who, appearing to him as a beautiful woman, had borne him children. In time his lawful wife discovered his infidelity and consulted the great rabbi Sheftel, who forced a confession from the guilty man, and obliged him, by means of an amulet containing fearful holy names, to break off this union. Before his death, however, the demon returned and prevailed upon him to leave her and her offspring the cellar of his house for an inheritance. Now that this man and his human heirs are all dead, contended the advocate, we, his spirit children, remain his sole heirs and lay claim to this house.

The inhabitants of the house then presented their case: we purchased this house at full value from its owner; you “outsiders” are not called “seed of men” and therefore have no rights appertaining to humans; besides, your mother forced this man to cohabit with her against his will. Both sides here rested, the court retired for a consultation, and returned to announce that its decision was against the “outsiders.” Their proper habitat is in waste places and deserts and not among men; they can therefore have no share in this house. To make certain that the decision was carried out R. Joel proceeded to deliver himself of his most terrifying exorcisms, and succeeded in banishing the intruders from cellar as well as house, to the forests and deserts where they belonged.

retold by Joshua Trachtenberg (6)
“A Jewish funeral in Vitebsk” by Shlomo Yudovin (7)

The banim shovavim make their impact on Jewish ritual practice. In addition to inspiring rabbinic exhortations for young men to keep their hands out of their pants, the banim shovavim add an additional fear to funerals. Along with fears that the departed might end up punished in Gehenna (8) or experience hibbut ha-kever, the beatings of the graves (9), the family had to worry that the departed or the departed’s human children might be attacked by his banim shovavim children. Gershom Scholem, one of the first major academic researchers of Kabbalah and Jewish magic, described a protective funerary ritual born from that fear.

The custom I shall now describe is rather extreme in character, but I believe that it illustrates the process by which such ‘anti-demonic’ rites-which later gained almost universal acceptance developed among the Kabbalists. Until quite recently (and occasionally to this day [1960]) Jewish burials in Jerusalem were often marked by a strange happening. Before the body was lowered into the grave, ten men danced round it in a circle, reciting a Psalm which in the Jewish tradition has generally been regarded as a defense against demons (Psalm 91 (10)), or another prayer. Then a stone was laid on the bier and the following verse (Gen. 25 : 6) recited: ‘But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away.’ Tis strange dance of death was repeated seven times. The rite, which in modern times has been unintelligible to most of the participants, has to do with Kabbalistic conceptions about sexual life and the sanctity of the human seed. Here we have an entire myth, the object of which is to mark of the act of generation from other sexual practices, which were interpreted as demonic in nature, and especially from onanism.

Gershom Scholem, “On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (11)

I’ll admit that I got chills when I first read that passage. Abraham giving gifts to his concubine’s children and then sending them made a certain economic sense, e.g. managing inheritance, but feels cold and alienating from a family connection perspective. The banim shovavim “no-gifts, you’re not really my kids, scram” version is even more brutal. In an earlier era that felt that they were on the receiving end of demonic terror, this was just a safety precaution. Now it just feels like banishing kids who are different. Henry Abramovitch, in an anthropological essay on the “mismeeting” between religious and secular Israelis (12) describes “the situation in which an observant parent is buried with full ritual to the dismay of the nonreligious children.” I feel a bit of that dismay here. Banim shovavim might be wayward children but they’re still our children.

Notes and References

(1) This version of the creation of Demons comes from Pirkei Avot chapter 5, which catalogs a list of wondrous things created on the last day. There are other stories of how demons were created, too. They’re fallen angels. They’re the evil spirits of those who drowned in the flood. They are the children of Adam and Lilith and Eve and Samael. They come from the unfinished corner, from outside creation. More too, those are just some of the big ones.

(2) Except for their feet. Sheydim feet are always chicken feet. Go figure.

(3) For more on guarding the dead, see the article “The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead:: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law” by Saul Epstein and Sara Libby Robinson, in the journal “Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural.”

(4) There is lot of well documented history and lore surrounding Jewish exorcisms. See J. H. Chajes’ “Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism” and Matt Goldish’s “Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present “

(5) I did the collage image for my “Banim Shovavim” Jewish Monsters and Magic trading card. Right now, I’ve completed 90 cards and will hopefully do a Kickstarter in mid-2023. The image combines the 1873 painting “Cellar” by Willem Linnig II with clipped and color adjusted images from the 1935 photo “Small girls sitting on cellar door, Georgetown, Washington, D.C” (courtesy of the Library of Congress).

(6) Joshua Tractenberg’s “Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion” is a classic. It’s still in print, and reasonably priced, from University of Pennsylvania Press. It can also be read for free online at Sacred-Text.com.

(7) “A Jewish funeral in Vitebsk” a woodcut by Shlomo Yudovin. https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/vitsyebsk/pictures/lohamei_hagetaot.html

(8) Gehenna. Is where the dead go if they are not yet fit for the world to come. For a great contemporary book that covers Gehenna, check out “Jewish Views of the Afterlife” by Simcha Paull Raphael. The Jewish Encyclopedia and Wikipedia have good articles too.

(9) Hibbut Ha-Kever, the Beating of the Graves, is described alternately as a pre-Gehenna punishment in the grave or a pre-World-to-Come punishment in the tunnels between your grave and Jerusalem. The Jewish Encyclopedia has a short article and it’s described in the Simcha Puall Raphael book (note 8) and in Joshua Tractenberg’s “Jewish Magic and Superstion” (note 6). Also see the Mosaic magazine article “Who Presides Over the Dead in Judaism? His Name Is Dumah.“

(10) Psalm 91 is commonly used as a segulah (charm) for defense against sheydim.

(11) Gershom Scholem “On Kabbalah and It’s Symbolism” published in 1960, translated to English in 1965. The quoted description is on page 154 in the 1996 Shocken Books / Random House edition. An early edition is currently available online at Archive.org (I’m skeptical that it’s there legally so its likely to vanish some point.)

(12) Henry Abramovitch “The Jerusalem Funeral as a Microcosm of the “Mismeeting” between Religious and Secular Israelis”