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The evil eye has a complex history. Evil eye folklore has existed across many cultures, extending beyond Judaism. The folklore and blessings for good health among Sephardim are often connected to the evil eye. An example of one such blessing is “May you live and grow like fish in the fresh water.” Fish are protected from the evil eye for one because they live in water, through which the glance of the evil eye cannot pass, and because their eyes lack eyelids and are located on either side of their head, allowing them to see around them at all times (I J Lévy and Zumwalt 2013). This elucidates an important aspect of the evil eye – it must be visible to the person to inflict harm. Another quality of the evil eye is that its agency is independent of the character of the person it possesses. If someone happens to catch the evil eye, their glance becomes envious and destructive; it is a direct result of the evil eye, not a result of the person’s demeanor or character (Kern-Ulmer 1991).

Many protective measures are customarily taken to protect against the evil eye. Because the glance of the evil eye brings forth demons, potent substances such as garlic and rosemary can be placed by windows or under children’s clothing, because the odor is thought to repel the spirits. Gold and iron can also ward off evil, so gold amulets and iron nails are sometimes tucked away in clothing and hair to protect from harm. Generally, protective measures should be taken at boundaries. This is why the mezuzah, strings of garlic and rosemary, and iron horseshoes are located at thresholds, doorways, and windows (I J Lévy and Zumwalt 2013). Beyond these boundaries, women may take place in a custom of exchange known as kambasear. This involves a ritualized exchange of coins or iron materials between women passing each other on the streets.

It occurs predominantly between women who are likely to become pregnant, newlyweds and newly pregnant women, two pregnant women, or a new bride and a woman who recently experienced a miscarriage (Isaac Jack. Lévy and Zumwalt 2001). This ritual symbolizes a balance of fertility in the world, and hopefully staves of envy that may exist between the two parties. Again, envy is a permeating theme with evil eye folklore. If a beautiful child is given a compliment, the mother may spit on the child. This “dirties” the child, reducing desirability and hopefully alleviating the envy inflicted by the compliment that might be welcoming the glance of the evil eye.

One particular association made in Semitic and Indo-European cultures is the relationship between the color blue and protection against the evil eye. In 1876, the Syrian rabbi Abraham ben Isaiah Dayan described instances of the evil eye and recommendations for how to cope with them. While the Zohar mentions that parents should place a cloth over their baby’s head when they bring the child out in public to protect from the evil eye, Dayan further recommends that children also dress in blue clothing in these circumstances. He likened the Arab color term for blue, azraq, to the Hebrew term for blue, tekhelet. The color blue is intimately related to protection against the evil eye in Mediterranean cultures. According to medieval Kabbalistic myth, a dazzling blue garment, which represented the feminine aspect of the godhead, protected against contact with evil forces (Sagiv 2017).

According to Jewish mysticism, a tekhelet garment protects malkhut, the last gradation of the ten emanations of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Malkhut translates to “kingdom” and stands for God’s creation, or the earth and the solar systems. Because malkhut is not a direct projection from God, but rather his creation, it is also portrayed as vulnerable and susceptible to danger.

Further, malkhut is feminine, which could relate to themes of defenselessness in Kabbalistic text. In his famous Kabbalistic treatise on colors, Gate of Colors, Moses Cordovero discusses tehelet extensively, seemingly concluding that this blue color was protective against evil forces on account of its threatening force (Sagiv 2017). Ultimately, femininity is intertwined with evil eye folklore not only in mothers and their babies being especially susceptible to its threats but in the symbolism of color associated with the evil eye.

Names

Another important aspect of warding off evil is the name of the child. The name holds value in that what the child is called becomes intertwined with the character of the child. The baby’s name cannot be announced before specific ceremonies, depending on the sex of the baby. For a male, the name will be announced at the child’s bris, which occurs eight days after birth. For a female, the name is announced at the first Torah reading after birth. It is not permissible to announce the name of the baby before these events.

According to the Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions, names also have protective or powerful qualities. For instance, the name that would be at the top of one such amulet that would be pinned to the baby’s bassinet would read El Shaddai, which is a Hebrew name for God. The names of angels would be written to the left and the right of God’s name, with Adam’s name written over Lilith’s name at the bottom right. According to Jewish

demonology, Lilith is the first wife of Adam, and after her rebellion, she became a demon known to kill mothers and their newborn children. The positioning of these names is important because it represents the names of God, Adam, and the angels piling on top of the name of Lilith to keep her evil away from the newborn. On another similar amulet used by Ashkenazim, thirteen

different names of Lilith are written out to prevent her from entering the baby’s bassinet deceitfully by using a name besides Lilith (I J Lévy and Zumwalt 2013).

Lilith

Lilith is a major figure in Jewish folklore. Her infamy derives from her portrayal as an evil seductress, and as a threat to feminine fertility. She has commonly been called a child-killer and has been likened to vampires and demons (Lagasse 2018). In various legends associated with Lilith, she is considered the predecessor to Eve in the Garden of Eden, or Adam’s first wife. Though Lilith was only mentioned once in the Bible in Isaiah 34:14 (although it remains a point of contention whether the lylyt haunting desert places was actually the demon who was once married to Adam), her popularity in Jewish folklore picked up beginning with a collection of commentaries on Genesis in the late Talmudic period, Genesis Rabbah (Humm 2014). Around the ninth century CE, she was also mentioned in a satirical work, Alphabet of Jesus Ben Sira.

The Alphabet of Jesus Ben Sira solidified the relationship between the well-known baby- killing demon and Adam’s first wife in Eden, namely that they were the same person. Lilith is mentioned when Ben Sira describes why names carved into amulets can protect against certain demons and spirits. He takes us back to the Garden of Eden, where God had given Adam his first wife, Lilith. Ben Sira uses sexual imagery to describe Lilith’s desire to “be on top.” In other words, she refused to be submissive both intimately and metaphorically. She fled from Adam out of frustration. When Adam sought out God regarding her departure, God created an ultimatum in which she could come back and suffer no consequences, but if she refused to rejoin Adam, she had to permit one hundred of her children to die every day. Angels pursued her to present the ultimatum, but she refused to come back to Adam. She claimed she was created to destroy

infants, and decreed that she had dominion over newborn males for eight days, and newborn females for twenty days. She added that if the angles names were written on amulets given to young children, she would have no power over them (Humm 2019).

In late Roman and early medieval Judaism, Lilith appeared on magical bowls, which were typically buried under thresholds to keep unwanted spirits away, in a similar fashion to protective measures taken against the evil eye at boundaries. These were particularly protective against threats during the danger of childbirth and infancy, but could also be used to protect against sexual attacks. These sexual attacks play a large role in Jewish folklore. In Kabbalistic texts, Lilith is the wife of Satan. In other contexts, she’s referred to as the Devil’s Queen or a sexual temptress. She was said to play the role of a succubus, having sex with men in their sleep (Humm 2014).

The relationship between Lilith and temptation found in Kabbalistic text and beyond emphasizes the relationship between her femininity and sin. In a sense, Lilith represents

womanhood gone wrong; she was not the ideal wife and was replaced by Eve, a more submissive partner to Adam. By the end of the twentieth century, when feminism gained traction, Lilith became somewhat of a feminist hero (Humm 2014). Her refusal to submit to her male

counterpart, along with demands that she and Adam were made from the same material and did not deserve inequality, set her up nicely for this archetype.

However, feminist ideology suppressed the more demonic nature of Lilith’s character. Lilith threatens values particularly important to Jewish women. Her primary function is to kill infants and secondarily endangers the health of the mother during childbirth. Her role as a

The folklore and concerns associated with Lilith illuminate many of the concerns Jewish women have faced for centuries.

Rachel’s Tomb

In Israel, there is a particular holy site that women may seek out during difficulties associated with womanhood: Rachel’s Tomb. In the 1940s, there was an increase in visits to Rachel’s Tomb. Sered attributes this to both the biographical history of Rachel and the political climate of the time (Sered 1989). This relates to the mobilization of women’s bodies for

reproduction mentioned in some of Sered’s other work.

Rachel has been respected throughout the Jewish tradition, primarily for being the mother of Joseph, a prominent biblical leader. Jacob, Rachel’s cousin, fell in love with her and worked seven years so that he could marry her. On her wedding night, Laban, Rachel’s father,

substituted Rachel’s sister Leah in place of Rachel. Leah was the eldest daughter, so Laban justified this deception to Jacob by claiming the eldest should be married first. Later, Jacob was able to take Rachel’s hand in marriage as well.

Rachel experienced years of infertility and grew frustrated that God had given Leah so many children. She finally demanded that Jacob should take her servant, Bilhah, as a wife in order to bear Rachel children as a surrogate. Leah countered this by giving Jacob her servant as a surrogate as well. But they each wanted to bear their own children. Leah found a mandrake root, which is not only shaped like a newborn baby, but it was supposed to be a fertility charm and aphrodisiac. Rachel traded a night in Jacob’s bed for the mandrake root. After Leah had given

birth to three more sons, Rachel finally became pregnant with Joseph. But as soon as Joseph was born, Rachel desired more children.

Rachel and Leah were also dissatisfied because Laban never gave them the bridewealth that accumulated from Jacob’s years of work to take Leah and Rachel’s hand in marriage. Rachel decided to take action on account of this frustration. She stole Laban’s household gods

(teraphim) as her family was leaving for Canaan. Because of her womanhood, she would not qualify to receive Laban’s teraphim, which was an important part of the inheritance of his estate. So Rachel used her womanhood to hide the teraphim from both Jacob and her father when Laban came looking for them – she sat on top of them and claimed she could not get up because she was menstruating. However, Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the teraphim, and promised Laban that whoever possesses the stolen teraphim will not live.

Later, when Rachel became pregnant with her second son, Benjamin, she died in

childbirth. The curse that Jacob placed came to fruition. More significantly, her fertility is what killed her. Rachel’s womanhood worked towards her benefit when hiding the teraphim and eventually giving birth to Joseph, but ultimately proved to be her demise when she died on the road to Canaan. Instead of burying Rachel in the ancestral tomb at Machpelah, Jacob created her own tomb and buried her on the road to Efrat, outside of Bethlehem (Frymer-Kensky and Jewish Women’s Archive 2009).

Rachel’s tomb became a holy site, a testament to her lament of infertility and her role as a matriarch of Israel. Now, it is considered a pilgrimage site that Muslims, Jews, and Christians seek from all over the world. Pilgrimage can be considered an expression of transformation. Embarking on a pilgrimage as a rite of passage may take on a liminal quality. Rachel’s tomb is a

particularly interesting site for the audience it attracts – women dealing with infertility and relational issues. When fertility is such a strong national and religious ideal, the desire to be transformed takes on a certain intensity.