Judaism Unbound Episode 405: Jewish Demons – Olivia Devorah Tucker
Olivia Devorah Tucker is a demonologist, Talmud educator, and artist teaching a course called Developing a Demon: Ashmodai Through the Ages in the UnYeshiva this fall. They join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about the world of Jewish demons and its radical, imaginative potential. This episode is the third in an ongoing series of Judaism Unbound episodes exploring digital Judaism.
Registration for Olivia Devorah Tucker’s fall mini-course, Developing a Demon: Ashmodai Through the Ages, is now live! Visit to JudaismUnbound.com/classes to sign up and learn more about our other upcoming offerings.
[1] Learn more about Olivia Devorah Tucker on their website, TalmudMagic.com.
[2] Tucker shares that the Talmudic story of the shamir – the stone-cutting worm that King Solomon used to build the First Temple – was what first piqued their interest in Jewish demonology. Check out this source sheet on Sefaria for a trip down the shamir wormhole.
[3] Tucker explains that Jewish demon discourse lost steam during the Haskala, or Jewish Enlightenment period. For more on this Jewish moment, see this encyclopedia entry.
[4] Tucker delineates three categories of demons in Jewish text. They are:
Mazikin (מזיקין) – damagers, those who harm; from the Hebrew root for damages
Sheydim (שדים) – protective spirits; derived from the Akkadian word for protector
Ruchot (רוחות) – spirits, souls; literally meaning winds in Hebrew
[5] Tucker explains that the demon Ashmedai, or Asmodeus, first shows up in the apocryphal Book of Tobit, and is later referred to as “king of the demons” in the Talmud (Gittin 68a-b). Tucker then cites Richard Kalmin’s Migrating Tales: The Talmud’s Narratives and Their Historical Contexts for their analysis of why rabbis portrayed Ashmedai as a king.
[6] As for demon queens, Tucker speaks about Lilith, whose legacy you can learn more about via this article from Lilith Magazine, the feminist publication named after the famous she-demon. Tucker also mentions Agrat bat (daughter of) Mahalat, who makes her appearance in the Talmud (Pesachim 112b:15).
[7] Tucker shouts out the 1989 children’s book, Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins, written by Eric Kimmel and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, for its Ashmedai-coded demon content. (P.S. For another adaptation of the demon king’s biography, check out Sacha Lamb’s When Angels Left the Old Country. The 2022 young-adult novel is a queer, immigrant, angel-meets-demon love story.)
[8] Lex calls in our episode, Daniel Matt: Judaism Unbound Episode 372 – Elijah is Coming to the Passover Seder… But Who is He? For Lex, Matt’s argument regarding lore surrounding Elijah the prophet – that it gives us access to our ancestors – is similar to what Tucker has to say about demons.
[9] Tucker recommends an episode of the Jewitches Podcast for a breakdown of how the European witch idea is based on misconceptions of Jewish life. Listen here: Witch History: Jews and the Witchcraze.
[10] Tucker praises Irwin Kula’s question, “what job are you hiring Judaism to do?” as asked in our podcast episode, Episode 54: Judaism’s Job – Irwin Kula Part II.
[11] Tucker refers to this passage (5:6) from Pirkei Avot, a rabbinic source on Jewish ethics, which states that God created demons on the eve of the first Shabbat. They make the point that demons are as much a part of creation as we are, and shouldn't be cast aside.
