L ifestyles /C ulture
Golems, Dybbuks and Rabbis: A Look at Scary
Movies With Jewish Roots
realizes she has broken the rules
of her clan by accidentally biting
a Jew, which threatens her own
immortality. Juda, meanwhile, consults
with a rabbi about various
aspects of vampiric existence
and Jewish law: Can he enter a
room with a mezuzah? Nope.

Can he drink blood even
though kosher law forbids it?
Yes, but only if it comes from
an animal and not a human.

FI L M
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
IT’S A HORROR FILM buff’s
favorite time of year: The nights
are getting longer, the air is
getting colder and the fallen
leaves are making those eerie
skittering sounds that seem to
follow you down the street.

If you’re seeking some
Jewish representation in your
scary viewing lineup, read on:
The following movies and TV
series draw on Jewish legends to
generate some serious screams.

‘The Golem’ (2018)
Brothers Doron and Yoav Paz
directed this historical horror
film starring Hani Furstenberg as
Hannah, a Jewish woman from a
17th-century shtetl. She creates a
golem, a humanoid figure with
supernatural strength made
from clay, for protection when a
group of violent noblemen from
a neighboring village accuse
the Jews of cursing them with a
plague. She develops an attach-
ment to her creation, even as it
turns its dark powers of destruc-
tion from her enemies to her
community. Dan Ben-Amos, professor
of folklore in the Near Eastern
Languages and Civilizations
Department at University of
Pennsylvania, said stories about
golems often draw from the
biblical story of God creating
Adam from the earth. They
also may stem from Jews’ fear
of violence and persecution.

“Pogroms were a regular
Chai. 22
OCTOBER 22, 2020
A golem comes to life in Paul Wegener’s 1920 film “The Golem: How He Came Into the World.” 
Screenshot from trailer posted by Eureka Entertainment Ltd.

historic event in Jewish life,” he
said. “They could not protect
themselves, at that time, by
themselves. They needed some
stories from God that would
protect them.”
Filmmakers have been
inspired by golems for at least
100 years. Paul Wegener’s 1920
silent horror film “The Golem:
How He Came Into the World”
reimagines the legend of the
golem of Prague, who was
created to protect Jews from a
pogrom but quickly goes rogue.

young girl who brings home a
mysterious box engraved with
Hebrew letters from a garage
sale, and then starts behaving
strangely. Her
family consults
experts in Jewish mysticism
and discovers she has been
possessed by a dybbuk, an
evil spirit that possesses and
ultimately destroys its human
host. Similar to the devil in
“The Exorcist,” the dybbuk
must be forced out of the host’s
body with a ritual.

Ben-Amos said the dybbuk
‘The Possession’ (2012)
legend emerged from the
This terrifying film was Kabbalah during the 16th
directed by Ole Bornedal and century, though the idea of
stars Natasha Calis as Emily, a demonic possession is not
unique to Jewish tradition.

“Very often, when people
News for people
got some sort of a disease and
who know we don’t
began to behave in an insane
mean spiced tea.

or unnatural way — and
Every Thursday in the
sometimes people claim that
JEWISH EXPONENT
they have voices that are not
and all the time online
their own — it is considered
@jewishexponent.com. a possession by another spirit,
For home delivery,
and the magicians, the baʿale
call 215.832.0710.

shem, would be called to cure
JEWISH EXPONENT
the individual,” he said.

‘Corpse Bride’ (2005)
Director Tim Burton’s
stop-motion film isn’t techni-
cally a horror flick, but it has
enough animated corpses and
skeletons to land solidly in the
creepy camp. It tells the story
of Johnny Depp’s Victor, a
groom who accidentally puts
a wedding ring on the finger
of Helena Bonham Carter’s
Emily, a murdered woman. She
proclaims Victor her husband
and takes him to the under-
world, where he struggles to
escape back to his real fiancée.

The story is based on an old
Jewish folktale about a young
man who accidentally weds a
corpse by placing a ring on her
finger and jokingly reciting vows.

He and his friends are horrified
when the body rises from the
earth and cries, “My husband!”
Jewish folklorist Howard
Schwartz retells the tale in his
1987 book “Lilith’s Cave: Jewish
Tales of the Supernatural,”
in a story titled “The Finger.”
His source was the 17th-
century volume “Shivhei
ha-Ari,” which collected earlier
stories about Rabbi Isaac Luria
of Safed, a city located in what
is now northern Israel. In the
legend, the rabbi rules that the
marriage between the terrified
groom and the corpse is invalid
because the dead have no claim
on the living. l
‘Juda’ (2017)
Judaism and vampire stories
have a fraught history due to
the role of blood in anti-Se-
mitic conspiracy theories.

Ben-Amos said the blood libel,
which alleged that Jews mixed
the blood of Christian children
into matzah, was widespread
during the Middle Ages. Bram
Stoker’s “Dracula” and F. W.

Murnau’s “Nosferatu” were
both widely acknowledged as
anti-Semitic caricatures, from
their large noses and Eastern
European origins to their
association with vermin.

So is it possible to portray
a Jewish vampire sympathet-
ically? “Juda” director Meni
Yaish and writer and star Tzion
Baruch think so.

The Israeli series, which is
available on Hulu, follows
Baruch’s Juda, an Israeli gambler
who is bitten by a Romanian
vampire, Anastasia Fein’s Tanja,
after a poker game. As Juda spanzer@jewishexponent.com;
begins his transformation, Tanja 215-832-0729
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM