(S)wordplay
“Helalê” — Miryam Bat Muhammad
Just the flash of a silver blade on a baby’s brow cuts a night-demon in half.
This is how I imagine a seipa in action.
Seipa, the Jewish Neo-Aramaic word for sword, is related to the Hebrew sayif and the Christian Neo-Aramaic seifo. Prominent examples of seipa are housed in the Jewish Museum in New York City and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The amulets’ locations of origin are labeled “Kurdistan (?)” and “Iran” respectively, but they are both likely from Bashure (often referred to as Iraqi) or Rojhelati (often referred to as Iranian) Kurdistan. In this work, “Kurdistan” refers to regions populated by Kurds, today split between the nation-states of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. However, this work also frames “Kurdistan” as “Êzîdxan,” “Shabakistan,” and “Assyria,” acknowledging that nomenclature refers to a regional space shared and shaped by multiple overlapping communities.
The story of the Jewish magical sword may not begin in Kurdistan, but with Methuselah. In a 1200 AD commentary, the Ashkenazi Rabbi Efraim Ben Shimshon describes the story of Methuselah as follows: “God then gave Methuselah the righteous permission to write his Explicit Name [Shem HaMephorash] on his sword and with it he killed 490 thousand lilin [Lilith and Adam’s demonic children) in nearly an instant until Agrimas the firstborn of Adam came to him. Falling upon his face, he asked for mercy. In defeat, he [Agrimas] handed over the names of the demons and lilin...This sword was hidden away with Methuselah upon his death” (R. Cohen, 2019). The Shem Hameforash is one of many esoteric (kabbalistic) names of God, in this story given to Methuselah with God’s explicit consent.
The Kurdish seipa use many formulas. “The hakham would inscribe on it [the amulet] the protective formulas, such as Psalm 121, shemoth, protective angels with meaningful names (e. g., Azriel, Shamriel), and the three angels who combat Lilith. The crowded and lengthy inscription significantly ends with the words: “a barrier and fence to the bearer of this amulet.” The sword was sewn to the cap of the child, who wore it everywhere for several years. In some cases the lad would wear the cap with the seipa until he started to don tefillin (perhaps as a sort of replacement for the protection provided by the sword)” (Biale, 2012). While I cannot confirm that the tradition of seipa amulets is connected to R. Ben Shimshon’s tale, I feel it is a possibility that such legends have their roots in ancient oral traditions that spread across the Jewish world. It is particularly noteworthy that the shemoth referred to are mystical names of God.
Psalm 121 is commonly used in amulets outside of Kurdistan as well. The psalm itself refers heavily to protection from God. According to Siddur Masorti, “Central [to Psalm 121] is the idea that the Divine is not absent, and is always present to protect us. Guarding us, sheltering us, never slumbering and never sleeping - God is described as taking an intensely personal interest in individuals, ‘protecting your very life.’ Especially at this moment of anxiety [referring to going to sleep/approaching darkness], the reassurances of Psalm 121 are a welcome reminder that Divinity does not disappear when it becomes dark” (Moffet and Treuherz, 2019). Shrouded in the simultaneous beauty and danger of the Zagros mountains, this psalm, inscribed on a gleaming amulet, could provide a sense of protection to a Kurdish Jew.
The construction of the seipa was a site of interfaith collaboration: “In order to fight the evil eye in every way possible, the material for the seipa was customarily acquired from three silversmiths: a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian. The silver obtained from these sources was then melted down and reworked by a Jewish silversmith who prepared a small sword” (Biale, 2012). To me, the metaphorical sense of an extended ‘Abrahamic family’ working together to mystically ensure the defense of a child is prescient. Many surviving seipa housed in museum collections are from the early to mid 20th century. This transcendent material contribution to the amulet may have signified a shared empathy regarding harsh conditions in which children were born, and lost, during the early 20th century in Kurdistan: “Hardships, together with the paucity of available means of defense against the onslaught of nature, illness, and physical harm led to a widespread use of amulets” (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000).
Seipa were not the only amulets worn by Kurdish Jews. The hakham carved inscriptions into many kinds of metallic amulets worn by members of Kurdish Jewish communities, and by their non-Jewish neighbors: “Jewish metalworkers made amulets also for the non-Jewish inhabitants of Kurdistan, with inscriptions varying in language and content. Sometimes people used Jewish amulets [sic] the efficacy of which had been proved” (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000). Amulets made for Kurdish boys and men tended to be sword-shaped, but men also wore Muslim-made prayer beads, called tasbih or misbahah, and attached three metal pendants (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000). Some amulets were written on parchment, while many were naturally found objects onto which meaning was discovered or imparted (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000). Not only that, but women would weave amuletic motifs into their woolen textiles, which might later be hung around the house; used as blankets; and even as walls of the sukkah (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000).
Amulets also grew with the user. In the case of amulets made for women, “The most usual type was the “Shadai” or yahadonai, which remained with its owner from childhood to old age” and was intended to protect its wearer from the ills of pregnancy and childbirth (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000). Amulets were created for important occasions, but also for common ills such as migraines and headaches; images of such amulets, which were embroidered to a woman’s kerchief or cap, feature in Shwartz-Be’eri’s book. Amulets “...were sometimes also lent, especially for healing purposes” in Kurdish Jewish communities, and most of our surviving examples of such amulets pertain to the ills suffered by women (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000).
The idea of lending healing is powerful in a time and place in which people were largely powerless against the climate in which they lived. It allows the giver to tell the recipient that she is thinking of her, with the worn amulet serving as a constant reminder of community members’ good wishes and love. As someone who has chronically ill loved ones, I imagined that the lending of healing power between women was deeply intimate and soothing. Often, the loved ones of people who are ill (chronically or not) wish more than anything that we could take that pain away from them, or give them something to ease it. I picture that, faced with similar feelings of helplessness, healing amulets made individuals feel empowered to affect positive change in the face of uncontrollable factors.
I reached out to Mika Benesh, an Ashkenazi-Sefaradi Iraqi artist, writer and designer working on unceded Gadigal and Dharug land in Australia. While Benesh is not Kurdish, they research amulets made in modern-day Kurdistan and Iraq:
“For many years, I’ve been archiving images of Jewish ritual objects and amulets. I’ve always found them incredibly compelling, and knew I wanted to eventually create Judaica objects since I began studying jewelry design and fabrication. It feels like a natural progression of my practice, and a coalescence of several things I’m really passionate about: jewelry design, emerging and marginal Jewish ritual practices, and SCWANA and Mizrahi Jewish material cultures. So far, the learning process has been quite self-driven. I have a mentor who has been helping me figure out how to practically fabricate the amulets I want to make, but when it comes to the actual concepts, blessings, and designs I feel sort of on my own. There are very few people (especially in my communities) who are knowledgeable about Jewish amuletic practices, and some who do know of them believe it’s simply no longer done.”
Benesh’s amuletic work can be found on their Instagram and online in Runway Journal. Regarding what I had learned about women lending their amulets to one another, “The Kurdish Jewish practice of lending amulets to loved ones particularly resonates with me; it reminds me of the networks of care, communit, and family that queer and trans people build with each other. I actually initially began making amulets because I wanted to offer some protection to a close friend who experiences a lot of street harassment.”
The process they describe regarding their work - using stencils to engrave holy words onto silver - reminded me of a surprising passage from Shwartz-Be’eri’s book: “...the hakham [engraved]...with a stylus, sometimes directly on the metal and sometimes with the help of a stencil. Cloth amulets carried texts also written by the hakham and then embroidered over” (Shwartz-Be’eri, 2000). As we forge meaning and protection today, perhaps we can all take a page from Benesh’s book, working practically with the information and will available to us, to show our care for others; create reminders for ourselves that we are loved and cared for; and weave protection, prevention, and thoughtfulness into as many parts of our lives as we can.
The Jewish Museum created a space in which I felt emboldened to ask questions. One of my peers’ presentations on her project, which concerned Maimonides negative theology, cemented my own work ethic and evaporated my fear. “Teach thy tongue to say ‘I do not know,’” quotes Ben Shahn’s 1954 painting, “And thou shalt progress.” I didn’t know, and I wanted to know; so did those before me who crafted amulets to slice through demons of the night, and vaccines that injected talisman, dead viruses as a warning.
Our ancestors used stencils, lent each other “medication” and jewelry; survived and died in pandemics; and prayed for a better world. We can honor them by engaging with their practices, reviving some, and making our peace with leaving others behind. A hundred years ago, few of them understood how germ theory worked; demons of disease are, today, able to be aided by practical folk medicine and by innovative technologies like vaccines and surgical mask protocols. We can put the same amount of trust and care into one another as they did a hundred years ago—and use metal, mask, and magic to survive these hardships.
