Jews and the occult: Five myth-busting insights

The Torah forbids it, but the occult has always been an integral part of Judaism — and continues to be today.

JTA — If you take the Torah’s word for it — not to mention generations of rabbinical literature — astrology, witchcraft, ghost-busting and the like are expressly forbidden in Judaism, and have no place in Jewish practice or culture.

And yet, as the current exhibition at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York highlights, the occult has always been an integral part of Judaism — and continues to be today.

“In every civilization there’s evidence of belief in superstition, mystical characters that can both protect and harm or rituals that can ward off evil,” Jeanie Rosensaft, the museum’s director, told The New York Jewish Week. “It’s just a fascinating thing, and we wanted to investigate.”

For the exhibition Magical Thinking: Superstitions and Other Persistent Notions, Rosensaft and her curatorial team put out an open call to hundreds of contemporary Jewish artists for artwork exploring Jewish superstitions. The result showcases the work of more than 50 artists in a range of mediums — including oils, watercolours, acrylics, collage, paper cuts, multimedia and photographs.

From hamsas to “the menstrual slap,” the artworks grapple intimately with Jewish practices that have been both painstakingly preserved across the generations and, at the same time, discounted as  “old wives’ tales”.

Taken as a whole, however, the aesthetic diversity of the pieces reflects the complicated reality of Jewish tradition: encompassing many varying and sometimes opposing perspectives that nonetheless remain in conversation.

Inspired by the exhibit, which is runs until January  2023, The New York Jewish Week chatted with Rosensaft, participating artists and other scholars in the field of Jewish material culture and demonology about the place of the occult in Jewish culture, both past and present. They helped us debunk five critical misconceptions.

One of Rosensaft’s favourite quotes from the 13th-century Sefer Chasidim — an ethical and legal guide to Jewish daily life in medieval Germany — perhaps best encapsulates Judaism’s true approach to the occult: “One should not believe in superstitions, but still, it is best to be heedful of them.”

In other words, just because the Torah prohibits belief and participation in the occult, that doesn’t mean that you should look a gift golem in the mouth.

According to Sara Ronis, author of the recent book Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Law in Late Antique Babylonia, the supernatural has  long been a meaningful and powerful element of Jewish life. “Many Ashkenazi Jews today have an understanding of Judaism as highly rational, scientific and spiritual more than material,” Ronis said.  “That understanding emerges out of particular conditions of 19th-century western Europe, and is an important part of Jewish history. But it’s not the only part.

“[Even] the rabbis of the Talmud recognised that the world was filled with phenomena beyond their understandingand demons and other intermediary beings play important roles in rabbinic narrative and law.”

The truth is, from the first mention of the demon Lilith in the Book of Isaiah to the red strings sold at the Western Wall today — presumably to ward off ayin hara, or the evil eye — the occult has a long history in Judaism.

Old wives’ tales — bubba meises, as they are known in Yiddish — is a derogatory term for the carefully preserved and transmitted traditions and material culture of Jewish women (you know, half of all Jews).

These customs and traditions — preserved and transmitted from one generation to the next over the course of centuries — are  significant. From this perspective, a hand-shaped hamsa amulet could hold the same religious significance as a kiddush cup or prayer book.

According to Noam Sienna, author of A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969, “reading” objects (aka examining Jewish material culture) in addition to Jewish texts is crucial to painting an inclusive image of Jewish tradition.

“Reading objects is a way of giving voice to subjects perhaps otherwise denied the ability to speak through the textual tradition — women, artisans, farmers, practitioners of folk magic — and making room for experiences and perspectives not expressed by the literary record,” he said.

The hamsa, as well as other amulets and incantation bowls, are also deeply tied to that textual tradition: “For a Maghrebi [North African] Jewish viewer, the hamsa hand conjures up a dense web of Biblical and rabbinic associations all centring around the twin concepts of protection and blessing — warding off bad energy and attracting good energy,” Sienna said.

While many are quick to dismiss the role of superstition in Jewish practice and tradition, the opposite can also occur. Sometimes a superstition becomes so embedded in Jewish culture and imagination that it’s mistaken for fact.

 Illustrator Steve Marcus  was inspired by  the widespread belief that tattooed Jews could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery. His work , “Consequences,”  depicts a heavily tattooed man in a kippah, crying.

While the Torah does include a proscription against tattoos (Leviticus 19:28 states: “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the LORD”), it does not prevent Jews from being buried with their community.

“The misconceptions I wanted to convey in this piece are beyond superstition,” Marcus said. “No matter what kind of Jew one is and what choices they have made, they are Jewish. They are Jewish regardless of race, whether they’re kosher or shomer Shabbat or if they are tattooed or not.”

Many of the items in the exhibit relate to Jewish superstitions about childbirth, a potentially dangerous moment in the lives of parents and babies. Like the misconceptions around tattoos, many of the Jewish superstitions related to childbirth — such as the Jewish aversion to baby showers — have been widely accepted as law. This practice stems from the superstition that making a fuss over the unborn child might provoke the evil eye.

Deborah Ugoritz’s collage Bubba Meises combines the traditional elements of a Jewish birth amulet (intended to protect a mother and her newborn from the demon Lilith, who might take the child away), but also adjusts the tradition to a contemporary setting.

“Ugoritz celebrates the role of women as artists and activists and includes the name of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, calling upon her as a kind of protective force for our present, for our future,” Rosensaft said.

Ugoritz said she doesn’t believe in these Jewish superstitions, but she does believe in their transmission — she didn’t have a baby shower, either. “I am not religious,” she said. “I don’t believe in superstition, but it can’t hurt. I feel like I’m honoring my parents so I[GU1]  continue the traditions.”

Rosensaft was working on the catalogue for the exhibition  when the pandemic hit. Originally set to open in May 2020, the museum postponed the show because of COVID-19 until this year — next in line after an exhibit honoring the 50th anniversary of female rabbinical ordination.

Which  makes us wonder: Just like the infamous hoard of mummies excavated in Saqqara in 2020 had some wondering if the curse of the Pharaohs had something to do with the COVID-19 pandemic, did this exhibition accidentally attract the evil eye?

Rosensaft argued that perhaps the opposite is true: the pandemic has  reignited our relationship with the occult. “I think that the experience with COVID has made it clear to us that there are limits to human understanding,” she said. “Human beings want to find meaning or solutions, or remedies for the things that are literally plaguing us. And I do believe there is this undercurrent of superstition, a belief in magical thinking. Humanity longs for a sense of protection and safety.”

That “Magical Thinking” ended up perfectly aligned with this societal sentiment — not to mention the current season to be spooky — was just a lucky coincidence.

Image: Detail form Deborah Ugoritz’s Bubba Meises (Courtesy of the artist)