#dybbuks

[stupidjewishwhiteboy]

This seems culturally appropriative, especially because what they seem to be evoking is essentially the demon from the Exorcist, which is very much not a dybbuk.

[bobemajses]

Leonora Carrington’s (b. UK, 1917-2011) “Dybbuk Suite”, after the Yiddish play “The Dybbuk/דער דיבוק” by S. Ansky.

"The Dybbuk" relates the story of a young bride possessed by the the malicious spirit of her dead beloved on the eve of her wedding. First staged in in Warsaw by the "Vilna Troupe", it is considered a seminal play in the history of Yiddish theatre. The story is based on years of research by Shloyme Ansky, who travelled between villages in Belarus and Ukraine, documenting Jewish folk beliefs and tales. The Dybbuk is known as the dislocated soul of a dead person in Eastern European Ashkenazi mythology, deriving from the Hebrew word דִּיבּוּק‎ dibbūq, meaning 'a case of attachment', which is a nominal form of the verb דָּבַק‎ dābaq 'to adhere' or 'cling'.

[nesyanast]

Scene from the most famous Yiddish play The Dybbuk by the Vilner Trupe. 1910s.

[thejewitches]

What are Dybbukim? How can we interpret our tradition surrounding them during this fraught moment, as Jewish communities cling to and cleave from tradition, spirituality, and ḥesed (loving-kindness)?

What are our dybbukim?

How does the tradition of Dybbukim engage with our values of Hereness?

As we seek international solidarity while remaining rooted in Jewishness; transformational and yet, demanding of us to be present and connected to the past, never without our roots & the conditions that we re-imagine this ancestral wisdom in.

The stunning images were created by @mygolem_is_here and photographers Aaron Farley and Magda Chudzik.

As a reminder, this is one interpretation and experience of Jewish folkore and folklife. This post focuses on the experience of Ashkenazim in Poland. Jewishness is diverse & vast: this post serves as representation of one facet of it.

Julie Wetz resides in Poland.

[slyandthefamilybook]

Star Wars writers when they can't come up with a word

[pechuyu]

I need more jewish horror,, there is so much material to work with,, both religious and our general history

All the motifs, the symbolism, the anger, the grief, the ritualssss

[is-the-thing-actually-jewish]

Maybe it’s a softball question, but I’d sure love to read an answer to “are dybbuk boxes actually Jewish?”. I know those things are still being sold on places like Etsy and eBay to this day.

Rating: Not Jewish

No, Dybbuk boxes are not real, they are misappropriations of Jewish spirituality and superstition. Dybbukim are a real concept in Judaism, they're a type of demon that clings to things, particularly people. "Dybbuk" comes from the Hebrew word of "Debek", which means "cling to".

However, Dybbuk boxes specifically are not a Jewish thing. They all originate from a hoax concocted in 2003 by Kevin Mannis, who exploited the Holocaust to sell his lie. His success has led to more people trying to cash in on his success on eBay and the like.

Here is an in-depth explanation of the situation by Jewitches:

-Mod Eitan

[garlandedspirits]

some of the Looks of all time

[indigo-constellation]

roleswap au things! more thoughts under the cut

In this au, clara was found by isidor as a baby out on the steppe, and adopted into the burakh family, much like in canon artemy leaves tog to go study, but in this one he actually gets a degree. On the other hand daniil starts by being the founder of the thanatica but leaves for tog and dies in the first outbreak. A year after that (4 years before the game would take place) artemy joins the thanatica and becomes it's head. While clara is trained as the menkhu

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55786033/chapters/141626062

[fentanyl-rabbits]

Extremely rare early sepia-toned publicity photo for the original Broadway production of The Dybbuk with actress Mary Ellis in a wedding dress and a damsel-in-distress pose, signed "Sincerely" in 1926 Photograph Inscribed and signed: "To Joseph Oppenheimer/Sincerely/Mary Ellis/Jan …"

[benevolentbirdgal]

Is it appropriate for non-jewish authors/designers to take inspiration from jewish mythology and writing? I’ve seen a lot of media that does that especially in fantasy.

That's a loaded question, and while I certainly don't Speak For All Jews Everywhere - I am Not The Jewrax, I basically hold that it'd be fine in theory but in practice, it's almost always problematic because few gentiles bother to engage with Jewish perspectives on what they're using.

I'm not 112% sure on what you mean by mythology and writing, nor am I 112% sure what you mean by inspiration, but I'm going to make some educated guesses and invite both you to DM me or ask again and other Jews to float other possibilities.

I'm imagining you mean something to the impact of the use of Jewish folklore, theology, and stories in non-Jewish media, like art and literature, so I'm answering in that context. Specifically, I feel like you might be asking about angels and demons, Lillith, and golems, although that is very speculative and just because Those Are The Things Gentiles REALLY Want To Use.

The TL;DR is that I think while in theory, it's fine for gentiles to incorporate elements of Jewishness into their story, in practice they usually screw it up pretty badly if not veering into antisemitic trope-age altogether. There are a few factors that make this the case.

On the one hand, I want to see more representation of Jewish stuff, and not just the same three stereotypes ad nauseam. I legitimately do want more Jewish elements in stories, and I recognize the quantity I want would heavily benefit from, if not outright require, some contribution from the 99.8% of people globally who are not Jewish.

With that said, I think that gentiles tend to fuck up Jewish representations, both from a folklore perspective and a Jews Are People That Exist perspective. It's not some fatal flaw to view other cultures through your own lenses - it's only human, but it is challenging to address and something to be aware of. I see Christianity, Islam, and other religions (and atheism, for that matter) through the view of a Jew who was raised in and lives in a Christian-dominated society. Gentile writers see Judaism through the lenses of their own backgrounds and the backgrounds of their society. For reasons that merit their own post, gentiles tend to forget that Jewishness exists independent of and predating many of their own lenses. For many of the same reasons, many gentiles have no interest in actually consulting Jews or Jewish sources on Jew things - we aren't regarded as minority enough or different enough or whatever to merit research, even among many gentile creators who normally research cultures they are not part of. Without getting into it, a lot of people also A) really can't handle the idea that Some Things Are Just For Jews (like Kabbalah) or accept closed and semi-closed say what they mean on the tin and B) have (at the very least) implicitly supersessionist attitudes in their approach to Judaism - applying other religious and cultural contexts backwards even if they're directly at odds with the original Jewish ones. They learned about Jew Stuff in their Christian, Wiccan, Muslim, Unitarian Universalist, Atheist, etc. spaces, and how those spaces approached Jew Stuff (and the attitudes inherited from those spaces) are prioritized over what the Jews think of their own Stuff. This often results in Jewish "representation" being filtered through the eyes of the dominant culture group (i.e. Christian), even if that's not the intent. This happens a lot with depictions or appropriations of Kabbalah, Lillith, and the Golem - specific cultural and theological biases are superimposed to the detriment of original context and meaning.

If you want to represent or take inspiration from a group, you need to understand that group. It doesn't mean you have to know EVERYTHING (no one does) but it means engaging with and researching the community beyond this One Cool Thing You Liked. The degree to which you do this depends on what you're using, but you want to be able to use stuff without stripping it of its original context.

Writing, mythology, and folklore are broad categories. If you want to use the zayde from Something From Nothing or make Sammy Spider real, that's way less loaded than taking traditional folklore and going Mine Mine Mine a la the birds in Finding Nemo. Good questions to ask when determining if you want to use a thing: is it explicitly closed or semi-closed? Has it been used to cause violence against its community of origin? Is it and its uses considered sacred?

Specific topics that you just shouldn't use because they are closed and/or have been used against Jews to cause us great pain: Lillith, Kabbalah, Golems, anything that implies or uses the blood libel, any kind of Jews-and-horns thing, or anything leaning into antisemitic conspiracy theories. I'd also tread very lightly and get sensitive readers on anything to do with angels and demons, circumcision, and kosher. [above list is def non-exhaustive, other Jews please add stuff]

Also stay away from any "this is the SECRET meaning of this Jewish Thing And The Jews Are Wrong And This Proves My Religion/Conspiracy Theory/Worldview." Even if it does not promote a specific worldview, there's some major ick in saying "no this is what your holiday/beliefs actually mean/imply." Don't Da Vinci Code us, basically.

If you are wanting to write or make something with Jewish elements, consult Jews on the specifics! Seriously, most of us are SO happy to help you workshop.

Again, I do not speak for all Jews, but this is my personal take, and the kind of stuff I've heard a lot of other Jews opine as well.

[chicago-geniza]

Wow. So flattered to see myself #represented on the Sex History Podcast

[anomalouseden]

Dybbuk

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?

[alethianightsong]

BELOVED: A ghost story

To this day, I still have no idea what Beloved truly is (even though that's the whole point of her character). Most people write her off as just the ghost of Sethe's daughter, but in actuality, it's way, way more complicated than that. Morrison said once that Beloved represented every beloved person lost during the middle passage or due to the violence of slavery. This shows very well in Beloved's characterization. Yes, her core person is Sethe's daughter but there's also a lot of vindictiveness in her being. At first, she's mentally just a little girl wanting the warmth of her mother but then she turns mean and cruel, upset at being mercy-killed. Beloved's obsession with sugar kinda baffled me, but I guess many of the spirits within her used to work sugar plantations in the West Indies and since they weren't allowed to partake in the crop they grew, they're demanding it now through Beloved.

For the sake of discussion, let's settle on Beloved being the manifestation of every person forced to endure the trauma of slavery. Beloved craves. They crave the life denied them and crave some kind of compensation. They're angry, upset, restless, vengeful. Ghosts are theorized to be imprints left by the living and Beloved is all the imprints of African slaves rolled into one. She demands love from Sethe, sex from Paul D, companionship from Denver. In the end, she becomes a void sucking away at Sethe, a reminder that the past is easy to get trapped in and haunted by.

My personal theory on Beloved is that when Paul D drove her spirit out the house, she went to the afterlife and came back with the thoughts and memories of the other black people she interacted with down there. This is why her personality shifts dramatically as the book progresses. She's a revenant, poltergeist, wraith, dybbuk. She doesn't haunt the white people who perpetuated slavery, but those affected by it on a personal level. She is the past & trauma incarnate.