Elior: Dybbuks and Jewish Women in Social History, Mysticism, and Folklore (2008)

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You can read on lots of sites the standard description of Rachel Elior‘s book from last year: Dybbuks and Jewish Women in Social History, Mysticism, and Folklore, and I will share it at the end too. But first I would like to point your attention to a resources that goes beyond that short paragraph. It is an interview with the author from last September in Tablet Magazine, Here is a sound bite from the longer piece:

In your book, you argue that dybbuks provided women a means of escape from the expectations and demands of society. Are there contemporary parallels to dybbuks?

Today we would say an unhappy bride is depressed, or under great stress. Saying that the bride was possessed by a dead spirit—meaning she lost control of her body and soul—is not so different.

And now the obligatory introduction of what the book is about:

How and why a person comes to be possessed by a dybbuk (the possession of a living body by the soul of a deceased person), and what consequences ensue from such possession, form the subject of this book. While possession by a dybbuk may have been understood as punishment for a terrible sin, it may also be seen as a mechanism used by desperate individuals – often women – who had no other means of escape from the demands and expectations of an all-encompassing patriarchal social order. Dybbuks and Jewish Women examines these and other aspects of dybbuk possession from historical and phenomenological perspectives, with particular attention to the gender significance of the subject.