Yiddishkeit and horror stories

What is Yiddishkeit?

Whenever I tell people that my father spoke Yiddish, they tend to go ‘huh? What’s what?’

Well, firstly, Yiddish is a language, just over a millennium old. Its vocabulary is predominantly German, with loan words from various Slavic languages, and it’s written using the Hebrew alphabet. It’s spoken by the Ashkenazim, the Jewish people who used to populate Central and Eastern Europe (as opposed to the Sephardim in the Iberian peninsula and the Mizrahim of North Africa and the Middle East).

Yiddishkeit, ‘or Yiddishness’, refers to both the language and the culture around it. If you’ve ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, set in 19th Century Russia, that is Yiddishkeit. It represents this beautiful mix of both Jewish and Central/Eastern European traditions, from the food to the art.

Words like ‘schmuck’, ‘dreck’, and ‘klutz’ are Yiddish. Bagels, pickles, and latkes are all foods associated with the Ashkenazim. Leonard Nimoy, Marc Chagall, and Lenny Bruce all spoke Yiddish.

Sadly, Yiddishkeit is dying as a concept and Yiddish is dying as a language, due to many factors, such as the Holocaust, societal assimilation, and the emphasis in Israel on adopting Hebrew as the national, unifying language (although it should be said that New York City seems to still have a pretty thriving Yiddishkeit).

My own family is a good example of this: as far as I’m aware, my great-grandmother was the last native Yiddish speaker on my father’s side of the family and by the time you get to me and my brother, well… Often our father would use words that I’d have to stick in Google Translate if it didn’t sound like a German word I already knew.

But language aside, there are some cultural things that signify Yiddishkeit, such as the importance of education, empathy, and an open mind – and arguing. Answering a question with another question is a Yiddish trademark (and appears in my own writing) and one classic saying is ‘two Jews, three opinions’. Those are the values I grew up with (along with Lebkuchen and various unpronounceable meat products), but also…

The horror.

Horror stories

The Ashkenazim, and Jewish people as a whole, have a long and dark history often marked by suppression, violence, and prejudice (see: the pogrom at the end of Fiddler on the Roof). This, combined with living in Central and Eastern Europe, led to a rich folklore full of forests, doppelgangers, and questions over the complexity of a human soul.

I am really funny around mirrors, especially at night, which I just put down to yet another personal neuroticism, until my father explained that in Yiddishkeit, there are stories of souls being trapped in mirrors and even now, when someone dies, many traditional Jewish families will cover the mirrors in the home.

There are two particularly influential superstitions in Yiddishkeit that this blog is going to cover: the Dybbuk and the Golem.

The Dybbuk

I love a good possession story. The word ‘dybbuk’ originates from a Hebrew word meaning ‘to cling’, which is the ideal description of this malignant soul. While Christianity tends to approach possessions as being perpetrated by demons, Yiddishkeit says that these are human souls, capable of great evil.

Usually a dybbuk is male and preys on young, virginal women, a similar setup to the classic vampire and probably mirrors the same anxieties around sexuality and maturity.

If you’ve ever seen a mezuzah (the little scroll on the threshold of an observant Jewish home), that’s what it’s for: protection against forces of evil like the dybbuk. However, the dybbuk was only popularised in 1920 in a play of the same name by S. An-sky, despite first popping up in literature five hundred years ago.

Since then, there have been representations of the dybbuk in films like The Unborn (2009) and The Possession (2012), the latter of which was inspired by the modern legend of the ‘dybbuk box’.

The Golem

I’m a simple Millennial child, who didn’t really have much contact with Yiddishkeit until my preteen years. So my first exposure to a golem was the Pokémon made of rocks. But guess what? The Pokémon is huge, powerful, and made of rocks, while the Yiddish golem is huge, powerful, and made of clay.

I first heard the story of the original Golem on a walking tour of the old Jewish quarter in Prague, on a dark December evening. Like the dybbuk, the stories date back to the 16th Century, when the Rabbi of Prague formed a creature out of river clay in order to protect the city’s Jewish population from pogroms.

The golem has appeared in episodes of The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and even The Simpsons and Arthur. There’s also a link between the golem and Frankenstein’s monster, but the most stealth representation of the golem has to be Ben/The Thing in Fantastic Four. Ben is an Ashkenazi Jewish New Yorker, who transforms into an enormous rocky form during the same space trip the rest of the Fantastic family gain their powers.

Mirrors are magical: Yiddishkeit in Coldharbour

Yiddishkeit is just part of my very mixed heritage, but it’s been hugely influential on my life (mostly because my late father was very influential on my life). As I mentioned before, answering a question with another question appears a lot in the Coldharbour series, while the study crammed with old books is the most powerful and precious room in the Wildes’ spooky old house.

The power of reflections will also gain significance as the series goes on, but for now, here’s an extract…

Where she’d been expecting clammy skin to flush under her touch, Alex met a chill that reminded her of Elizabeth. Maybe it was a coming back to life thing, but Alex said that she’d phone Shaz anyway.

“I really am fine.” Pandora laughed.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” Alex argued, easing herself out of her seat, only to catch in the wonky window a glimpse of what could’ve been a sneer twisting Pandora’s reflection.

She watched Pandora rise from the table, the glass warping her movement into the fluidness of a serpent ready to strike …

The Half-Faced Man flashed into being.

Alex swore and reeled away from the window, gasp after gasp ricocheting from her body.

Pandora was still sitting down.

Playing with the pencil.

Reading Alex’s notes.

Just like her reflection was in the wonky window.

And as for the Half-Faced Man …

Nowhere to be seen. Not even in the shadows.

Clearly, seeing wasn’t believing.