#the Jewsade

[hyperpotamianarch]

All right, so I have news for anyone who's interested in my Jewsade/Jewish dæmonism stuff! After not doing anything with it since I've hit a wall with no idea on how to actually write it, I am now considering using Maharal of Prague as a framing device that could connect the story to the main characters of His Dark Materials. Maharal is most well known for having rumored to have created a Golem - it's actually the most famous Golem story to exist - but he was more interesting a person than that. He was well studies in Philosophy and Kabbalah, as well as Astronomy and various other sciences. He was born in Poland about 30 years after the Alhambra decree in Spain, meaning he was a baby/young child at the time the supposed Jewsade may have occured. He was known to have conversed with Emperor Rudolph II later in life. In addition, his teachings later influenced the Chassidut movement.

I'm not really explaining his significance well, but he is an important figure who had the Golem legend grow around his character and fights against Blood Libels centuries after his death. And the fact that the Alethiometer was supposedly invented in Prague at around the time of his death helps.

You see, my idea of it currently is something along the lines of: Lyra, in the midst of studying the Alethiometer, finds some vague references to an early scholar named Long Loew. There is only one note from him which is very interesting, but there's very little about who he was and what are other stuff he said. After researching she finds a book that explains a bit more about him, which might be the heart of the story. That, or she'll slowly uncover hints and the story will progress in two parallel lines - one telling of the life of Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague and his struggles with the rising power of the Magisterium and another about Lyra uncovering his life and learning about the current state of Judaism under the Magisterium-dominated Europe. It will likely include some throwaway lines about the Jewsade and its outcome and about shifts in centers of Judaism. Some spotlight might also be given to Rabbi Mordechai Yaffeh (but only because I like him. He doesn't seem to have interacted with Maharal much even though he also served as the Rabbi of Prague for some time while Maharal was living in another city) and to some of Mahahral's students. There will also have to be some talk about the Shulchan Aruch and such books, but that's another thing.

Part of the idea here is also to remind people that Jews were involved in scientific development, to a degree. Some famous rabbis had exchanges with famous Astronomers. Due to how a Christian-dominated world generally works, though, you're unlikely to find discoveries made by Jewish scholars around the 16th-17th centuries. At least so I think, I'm far from an expert on that topic. Either way, I think this kind of story might lend itself easier to write. It does lose the angle of focusing on Sepharadi Jews, but I'm hardly qualified for that anyway. I think Maharal's type of philosophy might work very well with dæmons and the Alethiometer, though I do need to study it more (which I guess makes the fact one of my distant great uncles was a scholar of Maharal very convenient). I do still need to read the Secret Commonwealth to understand adult Lyra better and see how such a story might work - for example, might Pantalaimon go alone to the Jewish quarter of Prague when Lyra is unwilling to? What would each of them find out? What could really drive Lyra to check out one particular scholar? So, that's the bad news: after having a hard time starting to read the Secret Commonwealth, any progress that might be done is postponed until after I read it. I do intend to try and do it quickly, though.

So, yeah. I intend trying to talk about Jewish life in Lyra's world through the eyes of an old Jewish Rabbi, Philosopher and Kabbalah student, or maybe two or three of those. I will need to thouroughly research their history, but that's going to be fun (hopefully). Plus, I'm descended from Maharal! So this is kind of uncovering family history!

Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!

[hyperpotamianarch]

So, this is alarming. Also, I'm writing a post about it, which is also kind of alarming.

"This" being the fact that my Camp Nephilim story gets close to having the same amount of notes as my Dæmonverse Judaism post, and might surpass it. I can't allow that to happen. Thus, I bear a warning: if the former will indeed surpass the latter, I shall write and publish a sample of the Jewsade, maybe finish my semi-Psalm about dæmon settling and perhaps find new things to elaborate on regarding Dæmonverse Judaism.

I'm aware that those who might actually add notes aren't going to read this post, but still. If you actually want one of my three threats to be acted upon - which I certainly hope you do - you can add notes to this post. Alternatively, you could add notes to the Camp Nephilim post - as long as you stay on topic.

[hyperpotamianarch]

So, I don't know if it's me specifically being bad at looking up fanfiction or that those simply don't exist, but I'm having a hard time finding anything similar to the Jewsade - as in, a fanfic that explores the particular world of a work, without focus on the characters or plot of the original.

All right, in hindsight, this is innacurate: I did read a fanfic about the Good Place that is just about Jewish life in the world of the series. But particularly with His Dark Materials, it's either a dæmon AU for something else or a story focusing on the main characters of the original books. I'm more interested in the former, but it's still not exactly what I'm looking for.

[hyperpotamianarch]

Well, since this post got a bit less traction so far (as much as it means anything, which, I'll be fair, it doesn't), I have decided to update it a bit! The most important part, right now, is Eastern Europe. Apparently, there has been an explosion in Jewish population there around that era in our world, so it might do well to understand why:

Expulsion.

You see, every self respecting European country had, once in its history, banished its Jews. Be it from Britain in 1290, France during the 14th century, various Italian states during the 16th, Spain in 1492 or Portugal in 1497... And I've skimmed over most of it, really. Scandinavian countries can boast to never requiring any such thing, because no Jews were allowed there until the 19th century. And yes, I'm going to keep restating that because I find it genuinely surprising.

Anyway, apparently the 16th century was full of expulsions not only from Italy, as mentioned, but from Germany as well. And right after a bunch of banishments in the 15th century - including, apparently, from Sardinia, Sicilia, Provence and Austria as well as Spain and Portugal. Those expulsions, in turn, followed the Black Death and the pogroms stemming from the antisemitic theory that Jews brought it about. So, basically, Western Europe wasn't very nice to Jews at the time.

The Polish kings, however, took a liking to the economical boost Jews regularly offered, and were more than willing to accept them - which eventually led to Eastern Europe becoming the largest center of Judaism until WWII.

Now, I'll be honest: there was one actually effective Jewish Expulsion - the one from Britain. The rest didn't really cleanse Jews from their lands, though the Spanish and Portugese Expulsions were very effective in erasing signs of the Jewish religion in their lands. The other expulsions, though, weren't as thourough and there tended to be some Jews left there. That might change with the advent of the Magisterium, though only might.

Another point, before I go on to explain how screwed the world's Jews are in a world where the Jewsade occure: many of the banished Jews from Spain went to the Ottoman Empire. If we do want to be more precise about things, they went just about anywhere: the Netherlands, Italy, France, North Africa... But the Ottoman Empire accepted them especially with open arms, with the Sultan Bayezid the Second proclaiming that Ferdinand and Isabella were foolish to give up their economic superiority on a silver platter to him. For the next couple of centuries, the Ottoman Empire was very warm toward Jews. In addition, they were the ones backing theJewsih pirates in their efforts against Spain.

All right, now we can talk about the Jewsade and why it's so stupid. You see, the Ottoman empire controlled the Holy Land at the time. The very same Ottoman Empire that helped the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal. And who does David Reubeni turned to for help against them? To the Portugese king, of course!

All right, I can get it. From what I'm given to understand, whoever Reubeni was - he probably came from some Muslim country in the east, perhaps Yemen. He was described as dark skinned, and apparently spoke Arabic in addition to Hebrew. My guess is, the guy knew Muslim opression up close, but watched the Christian one from afar. He may not have realized that the Ottoman Empire was better for Jews than any European power.

It's a good thing he failed gaining their support, then, because otherwise I suspect he'd have caused a disaster. Beyond the mere fact he won't be the one ruling the land even if he conquered it, antagonizing the Ottoman Empire is... not a good idea. Even if he had any semblance of success, he'd have been immediately assaulted by Portugese soldiers claiming he conquered the land for them on one side, and by angry Ottomans on the other. Not to speak of the likelihood of Chales V, the Holy Roman Emperor, deciding he wanted a bite as well. And no matter who got the land in the end, the Jews there and in the rest of the Ottoman Empire are screwed.

Why do I think so? Well, it's easy to understand if we're talking Christians. Portugal wasn't nice to Jews at the time, remember? Emperor Charles V Might be better, but I'm not really sure. The real question, though, is about the Ottoman Empire. And my answer is simple enough. Antagonizing people for belonging to the same nation and religion as the people who attacked you? Where have I heard that one before?

The Sultan himself might actually try to protect his Jews, honestly. He might actually think better of it. The people won't, though. So, the Jewsade would likely be disasterous to all the Jews, involved and uninvolved.

However, the Jewsade isn't a necessary result of the actual alterations Lyra's world has compared to ours. Even without it, though... John Calvin as pope might want to create a unified front behind the Magisterium over the entirety of Western Europe at the very least. He apparently had clear views regarding the involvement of the Church in matters of the state. Him taking over Catholicism and turning it into the Magisterium...

Experts disagree regarding how antisemitic Calvin was. Some say he was the least antisemitic than the other reformators, such as Martin Luther. Others claim he was a little more than that. Either way, he wasn't a huge Judophile. It is plausible, but not certain, that under him most of Europe will carry out expulsions like the ones in Spain and Portugal.

Now, it gets really complicated. Because... remember Poland? With the whole "accepting western Jews with open arms" thing? Yeah, they're Catholics. As a matter of fact, outside of Greece, Ukraine and Russia, most eastern European states were Catholic at the time (not that greece and Ukraine existed, exactly, as independant states, but you get what I mean). I don't know what was their relationship with the pope, but transferring the Papal seat to Geneva will make it ever-so-slightly closer. I'm sure experts on Polish Catholicism could go on in explaining how they would react if told to banish their Jews, but they might comply.

That leaves us with Ukraine/Russia - which were heavily antisemitic, barely giving the Jews the Pale of Settlement to stay at - and the Ottoman Empire.

So, yeah. Ashkenazi Judaism might not be a thing anymore in Lyra's world. Maybe. Also, if it'll go closer to our world, there are still the Ukrainian Revolts to worry about - the Eastern European Jewish commuinity managed to survive them, but not very easily. If you add the Jewsade and assume every other Catholic country (and Protestant ones that were force to get into the fold) expelled its Jews...

Let's just say that even a century after it ended, the Jewsade could still screw Judaism up pretty badly.

There are other options, of course. The Magisterium won't take a firm hold on the entirety of Europe in one year. A lot might be surprisingly similar to our world. However, I think it's possible to say that by Lyra's time - most of the world's Jews live either in central Asia somewhere or in America. It might be a slight exaggaration, though.

All right. So, first: if you are either Jewish, like His Dark Materials, or both, please reblog. If you aren't any of those but know someone who is - please share it with them. I want to get as many thoughts on this as possible.

In essence, I just want to ask two simple questions. I have the beginnings of answers for myself, but Judaism is nothing if not full of discourse and many opinions on one topic. So, again: reblog. Share your thoughts and opinions. Hopefully, it will give us a wide variety of possibilities and answers.

The two questions are: where are Jews in Lyra's world? And what are the theological and Halachic concequences of having dæmons?

I intend to share my opinions in two separate reblogs, but please share your thoughts even if you don't see mine. The short version is that I looked about events in Jewish history around John Calvin's time for the first question (pope John Calvin being the major alternation of history in HDM). As for the second question - I have some thoughts relating to the Chabad thought stream. Elaborations, again, going in reblogs.

Thank you in advance!

(PS, question number 1 was handled once by the sadly deactivvated user the Tea Detective, though their full post disappeared. Link to a reblogging of the first half: here. Note, another reblog mentions other religions - feel free to discuss them, I'm focusing on Judaism because I'm Jewish. Another post asking this question was posted here, so have fun with it. Meanwhile, this post is about dæmons and religions in general and lightly touches Judaism.)

[hyperpotamianarch]

So. I am not immune to peer pressure, sadly.

You'd think it means I'm going to be writing a continuation of the Camp Nephilim story, since it's my most upvoted post. Sadly, you'll be wrong. I do not actually have characters or a story there. Feel free to take on this idea and use it in your fanfics, if you want. You might need to remember that it's partially a crossover with an Israeli book, but the most you need to know is: there are Jewish demons, Shedim, going around (along with many other types of demons, really). The details are based on the Talmud, Midrashim and various other Jewish sources about demons, so you can read up on that if you want to take it into account.

So, not Camp Nephilim. Instead, I found that the numbers Percy Jackson seems to make persuaded me to go a little more forward with my Bianca lives fic idea. As is my wont with it, I'm trying to explore the most loyal to canon option, which is why Bianca is still a Hunter of Artemis. She is also, as obligated, lost.

Now, I already wrote a post on it, linked here. I also started rereading the original series as preparation and may have a few notes about the Titan's Curse. However, right now I want to talk about Clarisse La Rue and her own diving into the labyrinth!

Before I continue, @demigodsanswer has posted their own headcanon for what happened. I'm not using that because I discovered it's kind of contradicted by canon, but it's still a good take on it, so I recommend you read it. It reminded me of just how scared Clarisse should be in it as well.

First thing first: continuity. If you actually consider the timeline of PJO, you'll find that Clarisse actually found Chris Rodriguez wandering the desert at the same summer of her quest. Funnily enough, it's also the same summer Percy and Annabeth saw him on the Princess Andromeda. This slightly messes with the timeline, but considering how compressed the book is, it's not really that bad. As far as we know, Luke sent Chris on his merry way before he even caught Percy and Co. in Miami. Meaning, when he first sent scouts to the Labyrinth, Luke was hoping to ressurect Kronos with the Golden Fleece, which is actually an irrelevant detail but whatever.

Either way, the book says Chris was found in full Greek armor, wandering by Clarisse's mother's house, mumbling something about a string. There are multiple options to what that might mean. The first is that, even though she's a year-round camper, Clarisse chose to go back to her mother's house for some time. Likely only on a visit, otherwise her brother would've said she went home after her quest. Obviously Rick was using it for forshadowig purposes, but still. Another option for who found Chris would be Clarisse's mother - who might be one of the mortals able to see through the Mist. I think the first option makes more sense, though.

So, Clarisse just went back home after her first quest. Note, I'm assuming it's her first because there were no quests between Luke's and Percy's and I believe Clarisse isn't old enough to have been on one prior to Luke. She definitely saw the quest as a way to prove herself to her father, but we don't really know about her mother (unless you go by another post from Demigodsanswer. She apparently has a thing for Clarisse, I don't know if she has similar entries for other side characters). Maybe she feels like she needs to prove something to her as well and thought that now she did. Maybe she wanted to relax after a stressful quest. Maybe a near-death experience caused her to want to reconnect, we seriously have no idea why she's a year rounder and it could be she doesn't like her mother.

So, Clarisse is in Phoenix when a guy she new from camp suddenly appears, talking about a string. She already knows Chris is with Luke, I assume - Percy probably informed Camp on that. So now she has a madman on her hands... And here continuity problems start to pile up.

Annabeth said that Clarisse found Chris "last summer", in BotL. This is essential, because a. Chris hadn't met Dionysus at all until the end of BotL, even though Mr. D was only sent on his super important mission after the winter solstice, and b. Annabeth said she helped Clarisse in her mission. Clarisse was on her mission during tTC, when Annabeth was abducted by Dr. Thorn. The latter isn't that much of a problem, though - it's very likely that Annabeth helped Clarisse research before delving into the labyrinth. Actaully, her absence throughout the book helps explaining how come she never told Percy about it at all until BotL - she seriously didn't have time even if she wanted to. The former, however, indicates that Clarisse couldn't have left Chris at camp until after her mission was over. In hindsight, this might be why Demigodsanswer chose to portray finding Chris as happening after the Winter Solstice, while Clarisse's exploration of the Labyrinth and the reasearch occured earlier. It does create a wench in the cause-and-effect cycle, but it solves the problem of how come Dionysus only met crazy Chris at the end of BotL.

All that doesn't really lead us anywhere, so... let's see, what canon explanation could be found for not bringing Chris to camp for three months, while not contradicting canon in every way? Honestly... I don't know. Maybe... maybe Clarisse thought they might execute Chris as a traitor? Maybe Chris was somehow in an untransportable state for over three months? Maybe Clarisse thought she might need his help in the Labyrinth, for some reason? Otherwise... I mean, Chiron seemed to believe - rightly - that Dionysus could heal Chris. Why wouldn't Clarisse think that feasible, and thus want to bring Chris over to Dionysus? It's not like he regularly threatens to turn campers into dolphins. He only done so in extreme situations.

For whatever reason, though, Clarisse doesn't bring him back to camp. Maybe she goes back herself, or contacts Annabeth via Iris-Net. I think it's safe to assume she took some time to research before entering. We only know of two enterances she knew of, though it's not impossible to assume that she went through some others. She was alone, however - right after her quest, which she also went on alone - and she got lost there.

I don't know how long she was there, or what she encountered - but whatever it is, she probably told Annabeth about it, and it scarred her. And of course, that is what actually is relevant to our story.

If you've read my original stream-of-thought post about the Bianca is alive fic, you might remember I suggested having Bianca team up with Luke's people. The main reason I had for that is that I wanted Bianca to have some parallels to Atalanta, and two of her central myths are about groups of people she went on quests with: the Calydonian Boar hunt and the Argonauts. So, I wanted to try and team Bianca up with someone. Luke's army seemed a more likely place to have misogyny trouble, but that would be really stupid. After all, every soul joining them brings them a step closer to bringing Kronos back. Clarisse, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of person to be angry over having the glory stolen from her. I did realize that I can't actually have Bianca join a large group, because Luke explicitly says that larger groups tend to have more trouble, which is why he sent lone scouts.

So, I formed in my head a general idea of Bianca and Clarisse meeting and how it would go. Part of the idea includes Bianca killing the Calydonian boar - only for some reason, at this point, Clarisse thinks the boar was sent by Ares to help her, as his sacred animal. I was somewhat hesitant about it after realizing how desparate she's going to be - but honestly, at this point her desparation would probably lead to her going off the hinges attempting to kill Bianca. Hmm. So yeah, I might be going with that. It'll also fit the theme of Cadmus, to a certain degree. Clarisse would fail killing Bianca, of course, though I'm not sure exactly how. We'll see.

I do think I really need to plan the Minos parts first, though. He's a secret power behind things at this point, and considering Binca's life effect on Nico's plotline at the time... This needs some pondering.

Anyway, thank you for reading! Have a good day!

[hyperpotamianarch]

So. I... didn't actually get around to fulfilling my promise of writing a new Dæmonverse Judaism post. My Camp Nephilim PJO post got more likes than the original DVJ one, so the terms have been fulfilled. I've been having trouble writing what I wanted to, though, so this is my stand in for what should've been here - an attempt to explain why Dæmonverse Judaism is important to me and why I took on this project.

Part of this is the basic lack of Jewish representation in Fantasy. I'm not going to get into it too much here, since it will be a digression, but as a general rule Jewish representation in fantasy tends to be limited and uninformed. A good example for one that is actually good is probably Spinning Silver, but I can't say I encountered much else that does as good a job in that respect. This is also why I wrote the Camp Nephilim piece - but that one's also based on a bunch of other stuff I thought of, and this post isn't about it.

The fact I really liked the concept of dæmons also helped, I guess. Even in my advanced age of 23, I'm still somewhat obsessed with the idea of self discovery, and I think dæmons can be very interesting through that lens.

I had interest in how Judaism functioned in the world of His Dark Materials for a long time now. Considering how a Christianity-adjacent religion was pretty much the main villain, it was more or less inevitable for me to think about it. At first, my excuse as to why the criticism of the book didn't matter for Judaism was simply that Judaism Isn't Like That. And while not entirely wrong, such a statement ignores the details that can still be relevant. Judaism might be in many ways interested in pursuing knowledge and not suppressing it, but it didn't stop certain rabbis from banning the study of philosophy and science. Judaism might not currently be a dominating world religion that scrambles for power, but that's something that can be subject to change and there can always be people who would want to use it for such purposes*. And while accepting at face value the worldbuilding of HDM as if it's real is certainly heretical, a. No one asked me to do that and b. It still has legitimate criticism, even if I think most of it applies to tyranny more than just religion.

Either way, I was curious as to where were the Jews in a world where their religion might also be a sham just as much as the magisterium is (though I preferred assuming the Authority hijacked a religion that had basis in truth, because I'm still a believer and prefer not to look at the world as if my faith is a huge lie), but they were still oppressed by the selfsame system upholding the word of (supposedly) their Authority. Which, if we're dissecting that, I think even if we don't accept my hijacking theory it would appear that the Authority preferred Christianity over Judaism. I think if Pullman wanted to criticise Abrahamic religions in general he should've done things differently. Either way, the question of where the Jews are and what they do seemed interesting to me.

I'd like to say that it's an interesting question in any manner of parallel universe in literature or media. It kind of reminds me of something I've seen once - a person telling all the people romantacising the middle ages that they wouldn't have been the knights living in castle but the peasants and serfs. And the thing is, I know the general status of my ancestors in medieval times. And I want to see them. Point being, I know my rough equivalent in a fantasy world won't be the high lord nor the poor peasant, and I'd like to see who they will be. I guess that is where Spinning Silver excels.

Going specifically for HDM, though, the concept is very intriguing and with interesting consequences. I know for a fact I'm not the only person to have looked up "what's your dæmon's settled shape" quiz on the Internet. Somewhere on the Internet there's a whole community for Dæmonism - people who (kind of) manifest their dæmons using their imagination. There's a whole genre of fanfiction that's just "x, but with dæmons". It's an intriguing concept unto itself.

It's not only that, though. For certain, it's a large part of why I started the original post - perhaps even half of it, considering it covered the point of Judaism in a world with dæmons and not necessarily Lyra's world in particular. However, the history of this world is also interesting in that respect - a fact I'm not sure my posts on the topic were persuasive enough on. There was, for example, a direct mention of the Office of Inquisition as something that could be reactivated in the modern times of this world (Northern Lights/the Golden Compass chapter 7: John Faa). And historically, the Inquisition and Jews didn't get along well - though to be fair, the Inquisition's problem was with the new converts, as it was directed toward Christians. You can probably see, though, how such lines could lead me to assume the things I did in my post exploring the alternative history.

I don't actually have any problem with Pullman not representing Jews in his books. As I mentioned in the post I keep referring to, considering his point of deviation it makes a lot of sense for Jews to not be in any of the places Lyra travels to. I don't really know what's going on in the Secret Commonwealth, so I might be wrong, but even then - both Lyra and Pantalaimon are probably a bit too busy to bump into random Jews. But in this vast world he created there's definitely still space to explore it ourselves. That's what fanfics are for, after all. Which neatly leads us to the catalyst for me trying to actually work on the topic - Dæmorphing.

Now, I have much to praise this fic for. Good Jewish Representation is actually not one of this fic's major strengths. The fic is great from many angles, and I enjoyed it greatly long before any hint of Jewish representation appeared. When it did, though, I enjoyed it as well. And when I got to the part where Poetry added a Psalm about dæmon settling to the lore, I thought I could maybe take on it. I really like the Tanach (Hebrew Bible), after all. I read Psalms in particular on a regular basis. So I thought I was familiar enough with the matter to write such a thing myself, and so asked Poetry for permission. From there, things... Didn't actually go too well.

There isn't much to tell, really. I have a rough draft of this Psalm written in Hebrew, but I am yet to complete the transliteration and translation (which I persuaded myself to include), and am not entirely sure I'm satisfied with what I have. Working on it on and off for the past year and a half or so, though, caused me to delve somewhat more deeply into the topic of Dæmonverse Judaism. I pondered the topic for quite a bit, and the posts you've seen are the result - mostly the dæmon-focused ones, at least. The historical part was a little more recent.

You see, the thing is that when searching Judaism and His Dark Materials on the Internet, you are way more likely to find something about Metatron and the Judeo-Christian myth of Enoch than anything of the sort I'm talking about. I've only managed to find one post discussing the alternative history consequences, and the actually interesting part of this post is no longer available. It's one of the posts I linked in my original DVJ post - maybe I'll insert a couple of links here as well later. So, you can imagine my frustration. I'm sure that if I'll look I'll find in ao3 many fanfiction exploring Judaism and dæmons to certain extents, and I'd love it if you could turn me to such fics. I still think, though, that there's a lack of fics actually exploring Lyra's world. I know it will require a mostly OC-only cast, something that might not attract much audience, but still. So I guess that this is what I was trying to do with the Jewsade idea - which I might have to drop, because I'm not sure I know how to write it. Essentially, what I wanted to do was to make it so the next person to look up what I did on the Internet will find something more interesting than an article getting excited over a book's use of Jewish lore. (That gets to one of my pet peeves regarding Jewish fantasy in general, but that's probably a post for another day.) I mean, sure it's interesting, but that's not what I was looking for.

Hopefully, you found this post enlightening on my mission statement on His Dark Materials and Judaism. If not, I'd guess the rundown is: I'm Jewish, I find dæmons neat and would love to see myself in a world with them. I would also love to see my brethren in Lyra's world, and would like for such things to be common enough to be found in a Google search. Also, random point: if anyone in the audience is a fan of His Dark Materials and is familiar to a decent extent with Psalms in the original language, I would love some help writing this dæmon-settling Psalm. Really. I don't have much to the side of beta readers at the moment and I really want some advice.

On that note, thank you for reading and have a good day! Shana Tova to sll the Jews reading this, as well!

*note that this nearly edges towards an age-old antisemitic conspiracy theory. So to clarify again: no, Jewish people do not control the world and most of them aren't interested in doing so whatsoever. But no group is homogeneous, and there are going to be people using every tool they can get to get into power. That's not related to their descent, it has more to do with hubris and narcissism, I think.

[hyperpotamianarch]

All right, then. Question number 1: Where are Jews in Lyra's world?

Now, you might find this interesting that with a somewhat theocratic Christian Europe - it's not that surprising that Lyra encounters no Jews. Not just due to some assumption that they'll be heavily oppressed and likely subject to genocide - though it's certainly possible - but because during the 16th century (when Lyra's world deviated further from ours), Jews weren't allowed in Britain or Scandinavia, which covers most everywhere Lyra went to. Jews weren't allowed to Scandinavia until the 19th century, and were only allowed back Britain during the 17th century - during the time of Cromwell.

Now, obviously the Magisterium isn't exactly the Catholic church, and we don't know of any possible doctarine changes due to Calvin becoming pope. If anyone who sees this has some ideas - please do tell me. Also, I have no idea how this will affect the Anglican Britain. It's obvious from the books that the Magisterium has a hold there, and I find the lack of mention of the monarchy in the book very interesting, but Henry the 8th predates Calvin by a couple of years. I'm hoestly curious to know what happened on that end.

But, I promised you a review of Jewish historical events of the time. Well, you may not expect this but it's time for... THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!!

Yeah, well. he Jews of Spain were either banished or forced to convert by 1492, and following that - the same happened in Portugal in 1497. Since Calvin was active around the 1530s, it means that the last big historical event for Jews was that. Not very pleasant, really. In other, slightly happier news - with the advent of printing press, books could be more available - and books are essentially the basis of Jewish faith. The Shulchan Aruch, one of the most basic books of Jewish Halacha, was printed at 1565. But yeah, that's a bit later.

Going back to the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, though - some of the banished became pirates. So, in the case you want to write an adventure story in the 16th-17th centuries, you can definitely have a Spanish-Jewish pirate in it, likely with a vendetta against Spain or Portugal (or both).

On another note, and here we get to what I really wanted to talk about, this was the time two very interesting False Messiahs came to be: David Reubeni and Solomon (Shlomo) Molcho. David Reubeni was a mysterious wanderer, claiming to come from the Israelite kingdom of Khabor - supposedly a kingdom of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Menasseh. He claimed to be descende from King David, though, and that he's the leader of the kingdom military while his brother Joseph is king. He said he was sent by his brother to ask the Christian kings for modern weaponry (such as cannons) and aid in retaking the land of Israel from the Ottoman Empire.

Shlomo Molcho was the son of two Prtugese Anusim - forced converts to Christianity - who converted back to Judaism following Reubeni's visit to the court of king John (João) III of Portugal. He had somewhat different views on how salvation might come to the Jewish people - he thought it would include salvation from Christians as well as Muslims, and considered it to be more spiritual, though predated by a flood in Rome and an Earthquake in Portugal. Both of which apparently occured. Also, he may or may not have been more knowledgeable about Judaism than Reubeni, especially after going to study from Rabbi Joseph Taitazak in Salonica. He considered Reubeni his superior, however.

In our world, they didn't manage to do much. Reubeni didn't get the European military aid he hoped for and likely spent his last days in a German prison, while Molcho was executed for returning to Judaism and was considered a Jewish Martyr - a Jew who died to sanctify G-d's name, choosing death over returning to Christianity.

Now, all of that did happen around the 1430s, somewhat close to the time Calvin would've been elected Pope in Lyra's world. I'm not sure it'll matter much, since Clemens VII liked Molcho and it didn't save him from execution, but it might have some effect. All things considered, the likelihood of Reubeni and Molcho becoming more significant figures in the histiry of Judaism is slim. However, I now have an idea for a fic called "the Jewsade" in which these two lead a Jewish army to retake the holy land (and failing, perhaps resulting in some of the effect of Sabbateanism earlier on), so I might write that.

All that doesn't give us much to work with. We don't know what Calvin and the Magisterium might decide regarding Jews - will they have more or less strict policies than our world's contemporary Catholics? Dependig on that, Judaism in western Europe might either take a huge blow or continue as usual. I'm not sure what will happen in Eastern Europe, and if the Jewsade will come to be... let's just say that the Ottoman empire isn't going to like it, and it's going to have a lasting negative effect. Which is really bad, because many of the Iberian Jews went there after their banishment. So, essentially, the Jewsade likely will do more harm than good. Can't say it's surprising.

Anyway, I think I do have cause to believe that there will be a major Jewish center in Eastern Europe, living in constant peril as it always was. No Jews in Britain or Scandinavia, probably. Depending on whether the Jewsade will actually happen, Judaism might live on in the Ottoman Empire as it did in our timeline, perhaps even flourish - or it might not. Oh, and there should be a Jewish community in the Netherlands, made mostly of Portugese Jews. Italian Jews might have a really hard time - with the Papacy seat moving to Geneva, the Papal State will be likely abolished. Apparently it was anyway in our timeline, but in certain periods it offered relative safety to Jews.

During the long time of Papal unquestioned authority, the Catholic higher-ups sometimes got involved in making sure Jews survive. Occasionally. It might be that with a theocracy that doesn't have a pope, especially with Enlightenment (maybe) not really happening and Emancipation not existing even in people's dreams, Jews will have a much rougher time. No possibility of a State of Israel, I'm afraid (and sure some of you are relieved to hear it) - without emancipation, the thought likely won't cross people's minds.

Those, at least, are my thoughts. What do you think? What will the alterations in history in Lyra's world bring to Jews and Judaism?

All right. So, first: if you are either Jewish, like His Dark Materials, or both, please reblog. If you aren't any of those but know someone who is - please share it with them. I want to get as many thoughts on this as possible.

In essence, I just want to ask two simple questions. I have the beginnings of answers for myself, but Judaism is nothing if not full of discourse and many opinions on one topic. So, again: reblog. Share your thoughts and opinions. Hopefully, it will give us a wide variety of possibilities and answers.

The two questions are: where are Jews in Lyra's world? And what are the theological and Halachic concequences of having dæmons?

I intend to share my opinions in two separate reblogs, but please share your thoughts even if you don't see mine. The short version is that I looked about events in Jewish history around John Calvin's time for the first question (pope John Calvin being the major alternation of history in HDM). As for the second question - I have some thoughts relating to the Chabad thought stream. Elaborations, again, going in reblogs.

Thank you in advance!

(PS, question number 1 was handled once by the sadly deactivvated user the Tea Detective, though their full post disappeared. Link to a reblogging of the first half: here. Note, another reblog mentions other religions - feel free to discuss them, I'm focusing on Judaism because I'm Jewish. Another post asking this question was posted here, so have fun with it. Meanwhile, this post is about dæmons and religions in general and lightly touches Judaism.)

[hyperpotamianarch]

-Hey, Arch?

Yes, fake audience voice?

-Why are you reblogging your question a third time?

I'm so glad you've asked! See, I've went over some historical stuff and came across a completely different answer for the first question. So, since the other reblog line (the Jewsade) has become too long, I've decided to start over.

-Why not reblog some other post that discussed that topic? Also, why the heck did you not do the proper historical research while working on the origi-

All right, that's quite enough.

So, another answer to question one! How exciting! Especially since everybody loved the original so much. So, you see, it has come to my attention that some 17th century events might have greater bearing on-

-It's because you liked the idea of the Jewsade too much, isn't it? You've spent a whole whopping Shabbat researching David Reubeni, Shlomo Molcho and John Calvin, and it was so darn exciting-

Shut up!

-on the presence of Jews in certain places by the time HDM occures at. You see, Menasseh Ben Israel-

-You were so caught up in your idea of a Jewish Messiah getting somewhere and then failing miserably. Why? Was that a commentary on the State of Israel or something?

Shut UP! I'm trying to-

-Trying to nothing, you keep allow me to break you because you enjoy this way of portraying stuff and don't have a proper outline to anything about Menasseh Ben Israel!

All right, fine! I'll admit it.

So. Umm. That.

Yeah, as my fake-audience-voice (-Hi!) said above, I did get caught up with research on David Reubeni, even though I knew about Menasseh Ben Israel's bearing on the history of Judaism at the time. The truth is, the thought hit me on my way to the Synagogue on Shabbat eve and I got so excited I kept it in mind for the entirety of the Shabbat. Then I wrote my post immediately when Shabbat ended where I live.

Those are not very important details, but I think they explain my odd focus on the Jewsade on the other post. I got excited. It was a cool - if slightly disturbing, considering its relation to the crusades - event that didn't happen in our world but could happen elsewhere. Only problem is, the alterations were slightly too early.

I don't know at what year was John Calvin elected pope in Lyra's world. However, besides it changing very little (the people who mattered for the sake of the Jewsade are the kings more than the pope), it was also likely after both Reubeni and Molcho were imprisoned by Charles V. It doean't have to be that way - slight alterations, even prior to the major deviation point, are not hard to make - but it makes it more of an independant idea.

Menasseh Ben Israel, however, held an important role in the history of Judaism, and lived during the 17th century, placing him in an easy place to be affected by this alteration. I will admit to lazyness in my historical research - when galvanized during the Shabbat I can do a lot, but Ambaric and Computing devices tend to distract me easily during the weekdays. That's a weak excuse, but this is why my reading on Ben Israel was mostly just his Wikipedia article.

Either way: Menasseh Ben Israel was the son of Porugese Anusim, forced converts. His family lived in La Rochelle for a time as a way to escape the Inquisition, but later moved to Amsterdam, where Menasseh Ben Israel spent most of the rest of his life. For the record, the time cite in Wikipedia for their move to the Netherlands is 1610.

Now, it's probably important to note that the Netherlands were only starting to become independant - there was a war, which was somewhat related to the Netherlands being mostly protestant while Spain, which sort of controlled them, was famously Catholic. This is probably significant, since most Netherlanders were not just any type of protestant - they were Calvinists.

To get to the point, though, Menasseh Ben Israel apparently attempted to explain Judaism to the Christians of the world - he was in a good position for that, I guess, having been raised in a family of Anusim. He also made efforts to convince Sweden and Britain to allow Jews to live in them, under the belief that the salvation of the Jewish people will only come once they reach the farthest corners of the Earth. He had limited success with Sweden - a small Jewish community was founded there during 1680s, but was later expelled. He didn't live to see that, though, or the eventual success of his efforts in Britain, because he died at 1657 while trying to bring his son's body to burial in Amsterdam.

To be fair, it took about a century more for Sweden to truly allow Jews in again, but Menasseh Ben Israel is, in some ways, the man who caused those two countries to accept Jews. Incidentally, if you follow Lyra's journey, most of the time she's in her own world is in one of those countries. Plus a portion in Greenland (Svalbard and Lord Asriel's hut, possibly the Station as well) and some time in India (I think? I'm pretty sure it was a mountain range in Southeast Asia in the book. In the series it was a somewhat forsaken island, IIRC). Though, considering she was unconcious for most of her time in that last place I'm not sure it counts.

Well, I just checked and it turns out there were Jews in Denmark earlier than in Sweden - it's not clear if there were Jews there during the Middle Ages, but Jews were allowed there in 1622, when Menasseh Ben Israel was about 18. So maybe I exaggarated his influence a bit. I'm not sure what bearing it has on Greenland, though. Anyway, attempting to avoid uncomfortable topics: with changes in how the church functions, a lot of stuff in Europe will change. I've said so in the other line of reblogs already, but I don't know if the Magisterium will start by giving the Inquisition more authority or close it entirely. We know that by Lyra's time the Inquisition isn't active anymore, but the hints that it was active in the past might indicate it survived Calvin's reforms to the Catholic church. So, in short, the Ben Israel family might have nowhere to go in fear of the Inquisition. It can affect Menasseh's life in a myriad of ways - he may have went to live in America, for example - and many of them can lead to no one raising to Cromwell, or whoever else might be controlling Brytain at the time, the topic of allowing Jewish return to it.

Without the Jewsade (assuming I'm dissuaded from it. I'm not yet - still attempting to work on a fanfic, which doesn't mean much considering it has been less than a week), the results of simply not having such an important figure will mostly just be no Jews in Sweden or Brytain. For the same reason Menasseh Ben Israel doesn't fulfill his function in our timeline, it may be that there won't be Jews in Denmark and Norway either. It might be that there would be mass emigration of Ashkenazi Jews to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, or America due to expulsions. Alternatively, there will be much more Anusim.

What you may have noticed by now in this attempt at historical research and alternative history is the prominence of Portugese Anusim and Expelled people. Or you might have chucked it to the "two is a coincidence" bin. I'm not sure what to think of that myself, as I'm usually more focused on the Spanish Expulsion as a significant event for Judaism in that era. The Portugese one usually comes as an afterthought. I do think it points out to a significant fact: the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula were very well educated and strongly affected every community they got to. There were Jews in Italy prior to the Banished Sepharadim, but instead of joining those local congregations - the Sepharadim started their own. In North African and Middle Eastern Congregations they're considered to have had a significant effect on practices.

If you're wondering what I'm getting at, you should know I myself don't know. Maybe that instead of talking about some French theologian I have to focus on Spain and Portugal when talking about the History of Judaism at the beginning of the Modern Era? Also, a lot of religious development in Judaism at the time occured in the Ottoman Empire, where Rabbi Joseph Karow wrote the Beit Yosef and Shulchan Aruch. One religious and political shift in Christianity isn't enough to change that. The Jewsade possibly has the largest effect because it's shaped by European politics and will change the state of affairs for Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Other than that, though, it's just a question of more oppression or less oppression.

And I'm starting to ramble. Main takeaways:

a. Shifts in the timeline might result in Jews not only being kept out of Brytain and Sweden for the forseeable future, but also migrating from Christian countries to Muslim ones or to the newly-sprouted coloniess.

b. Most everything related to that is shaped by the Spanish and Portugese Expulsions, forced conversions and Inquisition. Considering the possibility of those expanding all over Europe, I'm not sure what role Spaniard and Portugese Jews might play. They had a significant role at this period already, to be honest, but they might even have an even bigger one here, if very different.

c. Honestly, I'm not very good at this historical research thing. I love reading lore details about alternate histories and such, and feel that Judaism is usually ignored in the grand scale of things in most works about that (excepting WW2 related works, which is something of a tired trope to my understanding), but I don't see myself as the right person to change that. I just decided to drop History as a topic for my BA, and got a barely decent grade in the only class o the topic I took this year. I'm fascinated by history, but some things in its study are slightly boring me. In short, I really want someone else to take this from me. That might be why I just wanted to see the post by the Tea Detective instead of doing all this work: I knew, if subconciously, that I don't have the willpower to do it well. So please, if anyone reading this is as interested as I am in the topic and actually knows how to do historical research, please help.

Huh. Glad to have this off my chest, but not sure I expected it.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading that and found it interesting. Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

All right. So, first: if you are either Jewish, like His Dark Materials, or both, please reblog. If you aren't any of those but know someone who is - please share it with them. I want to get as many thoughts on this as possible.

In essence, I just want to ask two simple questions. I have the beginnings of answers for myself, but Judaism is nothing if not full of discourse and many opinions on one topic. So, again: reblog. Share your thoughts and opinions. Hopefully, it will give us a wide variety of possibilities and answers.

The two questions are: where are Jews in Lyra's world? And what are the theological and Halachic concequences of having dæmons?

I intend to share my opinions in two separate reblogs, but please share your thoughts even if you don't see mine. The short version is that I looked about events in Jewish history around John Calvin's time for the first question (pope John Calvin being the major alternation of history in HDM). As for the second question - I have some thoughts relating to the Chabad thought stream. Elaborations, again, going in reblogs.

Thank you in advance!

(PS, question number 1 was handled once by the sadly deactivvated user the Tea Detective, though their full post disappeared. Link to a reblogging of the first half: here. Note, another reblog mentions other religions - feel free to discuss them, I'm focusing on Judaism because I'm Jewish. Another post asking this question was posted here, so have fun with it. Meanwhile, this post is about dæmons and religions in general and lightly touches Judaism.)