an illustration of a fat, feathered, bird-clawed & horned, queer & trans Jewish demon, seated above Yiddish text reading "feygele." the figure is chained by the wrists but appears arrogant & inviting.
a poem with an illustration of bird with a person's head & crown of stars. the title (in Hebrew) is "sheyd
FEYGELE, 2020.
a sheyd (Jewish demon) inspired by two major stylistic influences, Leonard Baskin & Aubrey Beardsley, and also by the #AugustAdiPOSE & #FatArt hashtags on Twitter. the title/text “feygele” is a Yiddish word meaning “little bird” often used as pejorative slang for a queer person – here also playing off the figure’s size & the bird-like attributes of sheydim in folklore. a queer/trans fat Jewish aspiration!
paired with the poem “sheyd” from my chapbook:
commanded, as you are, to love the stranger,
must you not also be a refuge
to the strangest who reside among you?
call us in from the corners, we little birds
who sing in unfamiliar tongues: our cries
also reach heaven.
though our prayers take different forms
we too are people of the book;
we too keep our covenants, in the
twilight places where we make our homes.
even as you safeguard yourselves fully against us,
so do you imprison a portion of the soul we share—
let there be spaces in your dwellings and your teachings
for us to come and go in peace.
we bring with us both the fear and the joy you have forgotten:
in the dust, in the ashes of your empires
shall you see our footprints.
fanzines:
Pages from mini zines about Jewish folklore (the series includes zines on golems, dybbuk, malachim and sheydim) by illustrator / zinester, Ezra Rose. Buy them here and pay what you like.
figure i oughta reblog this now that i’m back on the site. the number of notes on this is a little overwhelming, honestly - thanks for all the interest! & thank you @fanzines for the spotlight.
just a note for folks in the tags insisting that it’s somehow “forbidden” to write out the word “sheyd” or “sheydim” (in English transliteration, no less!) & cautioning non-Jews to avoid writing or speaking it: please don’t spread nonsense around my work, which is intended to be educational & available to everyone. i’m not sure where this idea came from (a misunderstanding of the fact that we often don’t write out divine names?), but i’ve been studying Jewish demonology via the writings of many respected rabbis & scholars for years & this has absolutely never come up. so much of our historical information on customs & beliefs about sheydim comes from the many explicit references to them in the Talmud, not to mention all the text on the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls! we write the word out all the time, in Hebrew, in Aramaic, English, etc. it’s fine.
a black & white circular design featuring a Star of David made of bones with a weeping eye in the center. English text reads "GOTH JEW" with smaller Hebrew text to either side
a black & white circular design featuring demonic hands giving the "horns" symbol and half of the Jewish priestly blessing, with the text "HAIL SHEYDIM"
three holographic stickers on a grey background: a clawed hamsa, a pomegranate with an eye, and the GOTH JEW design
ALTERNATIVE JUDAICA: GOTH JEW, HAIL SHEYDIM, Death Hamsa & Life Pomegranate
don’t let Catholic goths have all the fun - Jewish children of the night deserve our own black roses! the Hebrew text featured on GOTH JEW includes a quote from Lamentations, “he has made me dwell in darkness, like those long dead,” & from the Talmud tractate Berachot 32b, “the gates of tears were not locked.” the Hebrew on the hamsa sticker says “death” & the pomegranate reads “life.”
all designs are available on Redbubble, holo stickers via Etsy
two miniature Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowl pendants on beaded necklaces against a parchment paper background
a miniature Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowl pendant on a silver chain, against a backdrop of cloth and text about incantation/demon bowls
Miniature Incantation Bowl Pendants
these necklaces feature tiny, hand-painted polymer clay reproductions of ancient Jewish magic incantation bowls (sometimes called “demon bowls”). these bowls were created during the period of 300-600 CE by several cultures in the Levant area, though many of the examples that have been recovered are written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. they often depict demons bound & chained at the center, surrounded by a spell to “trap” or ward off harmful spirits, and were usually buried under doorways to protect homes.
the clay pendants (around 1.5" in diameter) are colored and textured with natural pigments, then painted with acrylic - the “text” on these miniature reproductions, due to size constraints, is impressionistic rather than a copy of the real spells.
returning next year to my Etsy shop!
