“Demons in Warsaw!” Possession and the Yiddish Press
Samuel Glauber’s first session examines a public spectacle that occurred in Warsaw in. early 1914 surrounding a reported case of demonic possession. For close to two months, Warsaw’s Jewish residents were spellbound by demons, dybbuks, and mediums. A careful reading of newspaper coverage of the events reveals how the city’s Jews considered possession a real, albeit contested, possibility. Particular attention is given to divergent models of possession: traditional notions of spirit possession and demonology, modern occult currents—namely psychical research and spiritualism—and the transformation that these underwent over the course of the ajair; Tsiporah Kuzka, a 10-year-old Jewish girl whose short-lived fame as a medium gained her entry into the aristocratic salons of Warsaw; and the criticism raised by the city’s Jewish intellectuals in response to the spectacle.
In the second session, Prof. Zaritt will speak with Samuel Glauber about his research process, utilizing the Yiddish press as a historical source, and the forgotten history of the Yiddish occult.
Speaker Bio: Samuel Glauber is the Miriam Barr Librarian for Jewish & Near Eastern Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. A scholar of modern Judaism specializing in East European Jewry and its diaspora communities, he is currently completing a PhD in the Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he is writing a dissertation exploring Jewish engagement with modern occult currents in late-nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century Eastern Europe. His research develops an interdisciplinary approach to processes of religious and social change with a focus on the religious landscape of Eastern Europe; particular research interests include Jewish occultism, modern religious thought, and Yiddish press culture.
