Jewish Angels, Arab Letters: Folklore and Folkloristics of Jewish–Yemeni Amulets

Inter-religious interactions between Muslims and Jews in 19th and 20th century Yemen were mediated by occult practices, such as creating amulets and expelling demons, performed by Jews and Muslims alike. The making of amulets combined material and textual aspects. Jewish craftsmen created the silver necklace containing the amulet, while its content was based on interpretation of magical guide-books. These manuscripts offer a complex matrix of Muslim and Jewish sources, and contain a bewildering mosaic of languages, Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic. Composing and using such books required an act of translation, interpretation and mediation of knowledge by Jewish-Yemeni scholars. By utilizing both ethnographic and textual methods, this lecture will examine how occult traditions mark religious boundaries, and what are the cultural expressions that cross these boundaries.