Does trouble keep coming your way? Maybe it's just bad luck, or perhaps it's those pesky demons again…In any case, it's important to act quickly! That's why the National Library keeps a collection of magical demon-exorcising bowls created by Babylonian Jews!
Babylon. The middle of the first millennium CE. An individual gets up in the morning, suffering from a stomach ache or any other pain that may prevent one from leaving home and “earning one’s bread.” So, what does one do? At the time, in Babylon, there were several options: one could consult with the elders, visit the nearest doctor, pray to the heavens above or… order a magical bowl to capture the demons trapped inside oneself.
The Jews of Babylon were not the only ones who created and purchased magical exorcism bowls. Between the fifth and eighth centuries, Babylon was flooded with enchanted bowls used for capturing demons. There is reason to believe that the Jews were considered experts in the field, as over sixty percent of the magical bowls that have been found to date had their spells inscribed upon them by Jewish “wizards,” for the use of both Jews and non-Jews.
Each bowl was made by hand and no two bowls were identical, though some of the same patterns and formulas do appear on many of them. Most of the bowls were made specially by pre-order for specific owners, whose names were inscribed on the bowls themselves. Bowls were often buried under the floor of a house to protect the owners, family and property from attacks by malicious demons.
Incantations were written on the bowls in three ancient Aramaic dialects – Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Mandaic and Syriac. The text was usually inscribed on the inside of the bowl in spiral form, from the center outwards. Sometimes drawings were added to illustrate the efficacy of the magic, such as an image of a bound demon, a wizard or some other heroic figure wrangling the evil demons. Today, we know of more than two thousand such magical bowls located in museums and private collections around the world. Most of them are preserved away from the public eye.
How, then, did the Library come into possession of several of these bowls? Recently, seven of these rare enchanted objects were donated to the National Library of Israel by collector Avigdor Klagsbald. These seven joined another single bowl that is part of the Gershom Scholem Collection, donated many years ago by the famous scholar of Jewish mysticism. The bowls are among the oldest items in the Library, and here you can have a look at them…
The story of Smumit: A mother protecting her children
This bowl was donated by Gershom Scholem. The inscription tells the story of a character named Smumit, who lost her sons at the hands of a demon called Sydrus. She fled and built herself a fortress, where she gave birth to another son. Unfortunately, Sydrus managed to enter the fortress and kill this newborn child as well. When Sydrus’ crime was discovered, he fled. At this point, came a heavenly intervention: Four angels – Soni, Sasoni, Sangri, and Ertico – pursued and caught the demon. When they were about to kill him, he swore not to harm the children of the bowl owner wherever the names of the four angels were mentioned. There are certain connections between this story and the story of Lilith, the first wife of the biblical Adam, an infamous demonic murderer of children, which appears in the medieval work Alpha Beta deBen Sira. The names of the first three angels can still be found today, in a slightly altered from, in amulets and talismans intended to protect pregnant women. In the center of the bowl is a drawing of an unidentified figure. The story of this bowl was originally published in 1985 by Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked. It was brought to light again recently in the work of James Nathan Ford.
Bowl with Jewish Babylonian Aramaic inscription. From the Gershom Scholem Collection at the National Library.
The Mandaic bowl of Zadoi Ben Dadai
The inscription on this bowl is written in the Mandaic language, which is a dialect of ancient Aramaic spoken in Babylon by members of the Mandaean community. The incantation is directed against a long line of Lilith-like demons, each with a different name. On one side of the bowl we can spot the figure of a demon, perhaps one of those from which the owner of the bowl, Zadoi Ben Dadai, sought protection. These bowls are the earliest evidence of the culture of the Mandaean community, which exists to this day.
Bowl with Mandaic inscription. From the National Library Collection.
A bowl to protect a house and its residents
This bowl barely survived the arduous journey to Jerusalem. It was reassembled from several fragments, but one of the pieces is clearly still missing. The inscription on the bowl, written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, is an appeal to a large number of angels to protect the house and its inhabitants. A demon with long hair, bound by its hands and feet, is featured in the center of the bowl.
Bowl with Jewish Babylonian Aramaic inscription. From the National Library Collections.
This article was written with the generous assistance of Dr. James Nathan Ford of the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages at Bar-Ilan University.
Amos Oz, 1972. IPPA, the Dan Hadani Collection at the National Library
On November 29th, 2016, two years before his death, Amoz Oz gave a speech as part of a panel discussion dedicated to “Jerusalem and the Overlappings of the Sacred” during the “Global Forum of the National Library“. In his speech (which was given in English) Oz spoke of Jerusalem, the city in which he was born. He also revealed the things which he held sacred and the moral imperative which guided him. Here are a few selections from the speech:
On holy places
To me, one place in Jerusalem has been sacred since I was a little boy: The library. I am a son of a librarian. I happen to be also the son-in-law of a librarian, the husband of an archivist, the brother-in-law of another librarian and the father of three writers. What else could I be? Which other place could be more sacred to my heart than libraries?
On religion
My late grandmother Shlomit, who died almost exactly 60 years ago, long before the Six-Day-War, long before the disputes about the holy places in Jerusalem – she might have had the answer to the problem of the future of the disputed holy places in Jerusalem. When I was a little boy, maybe four, maybe five, grandma Shlomit explained to me in simple words the difference between Jew and Christian…
“You see, my boy” she said, “the Christians, they believe that the Messiah (has) been here once and he will come again one day. We Jews, we happen to believe that the Messiah (has) not been here and he is still to come. Over this dispute,” said grandma Shlomit, “you cannot imagine, my boy, how much bloodshed, hatred, persecution, cruelty…Why?” she said, “Why can’t everybody simply wait and see? If the Messiah comes saying: ‘Hello! It’s nice to see you again!’ – The Jews will have to convert or at least to apologize to the Christians. If, on the other hand, the Messiah comes saying: ‘How do you do? Very nice meeting you!’ – The entire Christian world will have to convert or at least to apologize to the Jews.” She knew one or two things about open-ended situations and open-ended solutions.
What was sacred to him?
Human solidarity, justice, sharing, rule of law, family values, the family table, stories, a sense of humor – all these are components of Jewish heritage.
I will add to that: human life, human suffering… There is pain enough to go round. There may not be love enough to go round but there is pain enough to go round without ourselves adding pain upon pain.
Pain is a great human equalizer. Sometimes I say tongue-in-cheeck that pain is almost a socialist – it doesn’t distinguish between rich and poor, Jew and Christian and Muslim…Pain is pain. Pain is a great unifier.
Amoz Oz and Jesus
I disagree with Jesus Christ. I love him, he is close to my heart, but I disagree with him on a few things. I never agreed with Jesus Christ on the idea of universal love – everybody loving everyone else. This is very sweet but very childish. I disagree with Jesus when he says ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.’…Oh yes, we know. We are not moral idiots…When we inflict pain on others we know exactly what we are doing…We know very well. Even a little child pulling the cat’s tail – he knows or she knows that they are inflicting pain.
Oz’s faith and moral imperative, “in a nutshell”
Paraphrasing Kant of course – no one can invent anything new – I would say: Thou shalt not inflict pain, or to be more modest: Thou shalt try to inflict as little pain as you possibly can… This is not relative. This is not dependent on varying narratives and varying traditions. We know.
A cure for fanaticism:
I have never seen a fanatic with a sense of humor… especially a self-targeted sense of humor…this is a powerful immunity to fanaticism. If I could only condense the sense of humor into capsules and persuade entire populations to swallow my humor capsules, thus immuning them to fanaticism, I would qualify for the Nobel Prize, not in Literature but in Medicine…A sacred curiosity, a sacred sense of humor…And may every one of us fight as much as we can, against the internal fanatic inside each and every one of us
Amos Oz 1939-2018
May his memory be a blessing
Spotted Off the Shores of the Holy Land: The Little Mermaid
Mermaids, sea monsters and all sorts of fantastic creatures were a common feature of ancient maps
When examining ancient maps of different kinds, a recurring theme will often catch the eye.
As oceans and seas naturally occupy large, expansive areas of maps, we find that illustrators tend to fill these spaces with interesting drawings of a rather imaginative nature. Sea monsters are a popular theme, as are ships. But, another exotic sea creature of a different sort is often the subject of these oceanic map illustrations – mermaids.
Mermaids feature in a number of ancient maps preserved in the Eran Laor Cartographic Collection at the National Library of Israel. On Sebastian Münster’s 1572 map of the Asian continent, you can spot a mermaid with a sloping fin-tail splashing in the waters south of Indonesia, not far from a fairly ordinary looking sea monster.
In this map of the Arabian Peninsula created by Ptolemy and printed in Basel in 1545, we can see a mermaid swimming in the Gulf of Aden. She is depicted with a crown-like braid, a style popular with high-born maidens of the Renaissance-era, and she has wings or fins instead of arms.
Even in the famous Bünting Clover Leaf Map, which depicts Jerusalem as the center of the world, we can see a mermaid bathing in the eastern oceans as a merman gazes at her with keen interest.
Indeed, here at the National Library of Israel, we need not look far to find these aquatic creatures – In 1722 Edward Wells created a map which displayed how the land of Canaan was divided up among the twelve tribes of Israel. Here as well, you can see a mermaid leaning against the frame of the title, her infant mer-child clinging on to her. This touching scene takes place right off the coast of the city of Acre (Akko).
It seems these aquatic creatures could be found all over the world, so long as those spotting them used a little bit of imagination!
How Eli Cohen, Israel’s Man in Damascus, Was Captured
Noam Nachman-Tepper seeks to dispute the accepted narrative surrounding the capture of Eli Cohen.
Eli Cohen, undercover as Kamel Amin Thaabet, in the cockpit of a Syrian aircraft.
For many years, Israel believed that Eli Cohen was captured due to the fact that Syrian intelligence managed to intercept his correspondence with Mossad headquarters in Israel. However, testimony which appears in my book, “Eli Cohen – Open Case” shows that there is actually very little chance that the Syrians succeeded in locating the signal of Cohen’s communication device.
Documents and testimony from the head of Syrian intelligence and the testimony of an intelligence officer who broke into Cohen’s apartment indicate that the Syrians carried out constant physical surveillance of Cohen. How, then, was Israel’s man in Damascus really captured?
Eli Cohen’s last letter to his wife, Nadia, written in Arabic an hour before his execution.
Recruitment
The decision to recruit and train an agent to be stationed in a target country (Egypt, Jordan or Syria) was made in 1958, not long after military intelligence failed to identify the Egyptian army’s infiltration into the Sinai Peninsula. Indeed, the head of Military Intelligence was dismissed as a result. This failure stemmed from a decision made by one of the officers in the IDF listening unit to not pass along information regarding Egyptian armored units crossing the Suez Canal. Military Intelligence decided there was a need to significantly improve its ability to identify states of high alert and the movement of forces in unfriendly Arab countries. To this end, it was decided to plant a number of agents in Arab countries who would report on military movements and preparations. As part of this directive, an operative was recruited to be stationed in Damascus.
The recruitment of Eli Cohen to Unit 188, a military intelligence unit dedicated top operations beyond Israel’s borders, happened by coincidence. In September 1959, Cohen sent a Rosh Hashana greeting to Shlomo Millett, the interviewer who had previously disqualified him from serving as a spy. As a result of this greeting card, the question of Cohen’s candidacy was raised again. This time, as there was an immediate demand, Cohen was allowed to begin the recruitment process with two other candidates.
Finally, Cohen was chosen and he began learning his craft at Israel’s “School of Espionage”, which at the time consisted of only two instructors, Motti Kfir and Nathan Salomon. Salomon began to teach Eli Cohen the most basic skills needed by any spy – how to follow and how to avoid being followed, how to write in secret ink, and other methods of avoiding detection. Among other things, Salomon noticed that his student had an exceptional memory.
Eli and Nadia Cohen under the chuppah. August, 1959.
Cohen underwent nine months of basic training, which also included photography and film development and instruction in the use of encryption and a Morse code transmitter. Finally, Cohen’s instructors decided that the time had come to craft him a cover story. Cohen became Kamel Amin Thaabet, a businessman whose parents were of Syrian origin, but had immigrated to Lebanon. According to the story, his parents had died one after the other and he was summoned to work with his uncle, a businessman in Argentina.
Cohen landed in the Argentine capital in February 1961 and immediately began learning Spanish with a private teacher. The goal was to be able to speak at such a level as to convince Syrians that he had been living in Argentina for the last 16 years.
Behind Enemy Lines
Upon his return from Argentina, Eli Cohen underwent further training in an operational unit. On January 10, 1962, “Kamel Amin Thaabet” boarded a tourist ship that set out from the city of Genoa, Italy, anchored in Alexandria and, eventually, reached the port of Beirut.
On the ship, Eli Cohen met Majeed Sheikh al-Ard – a figure who would accompany him during his three years in Damascus. Al-Ard was a man of the world; he spoke many languages and was fluent in German. The two met on the deck of the ship and struck up a conversation, during which Cohen told him his cover story. As a rich businessman, looking to invest inherited capital, Cohen expressed his desire to examine the possibility of doing business in his native Syria. Majeed Sheikh al-Ard suggested that after landing in Beirut, Cohen should join him on a journey from Beirut to Damascus. Al-Arad invited Cohen to make the journey with him in his new car and, after a day of rest in Beirut, the pair made their way to the border crossing between Lebanon and Syria.
According to documents from US intelligence, Majeed Sheikh al-Ard was no innocent bystander. Al-Ard was a paid informant for the Americans from 1951 to 1959. Majeed Sheikh al-Ard explained to Cohen that he had a number of friends who could arrange a smooth crossing of the border for a few hundred Syrian pounds. Majeed Sheikh al-Ard called his friend, a Syrian security man waiting for them at the border crossing, while loaning a sum of 400 Syrian pounds from Cohen, a loan that would never be returned. Another friend of al-Ard’s was in charge of customs at the border crossing. Kamel Amin Thaabet (Eli Cohen) sat, drinking coffee at the border crossing as Majeed Sheikh al-Ard’s friends took care of the paperwork and transferred the bags containing the spy equipment that Cohen had brought with him from Israel. When the junior customs officers tried to open the suitcases, their boss scolded them loudly, “They’ve already been checked!” lied the supervisor. This was how Eli Cohen arrived in Damascus without so much as a search of his personal effects.
Damascus: Point A marks Eli Cohen’s apartment, point B marks Air Force Headquarters (Google Maps). Click to enlarge.
Five days after arriving in Damascus, and having already managed to rent an apartment, Eli Cohen transmitted his first message back to headquarters in Israel – I have arrived safely.
The Arrest
Eli Cohen served in Syria from January, 1962 until his arrest on January 18, 1965.
According to the head of Syrian intelligence, the Syrians began suspecting Cohen when they learned of his interactions with “a man of suspicious ties.” The officer went on to explain that following Cohen’s arrest, a Syrian citizen who had helped him cross the Lebanese border and enter Damascus was also arrested. The source was referring to Majeed Sheikh al-Ard – the very same person who accompanied Cohen throughout his three years in Syria.
Eli Cohen left and re-entered Syria multiple times. The fifth instance was on November 26, 1964. Not long before this, the Syrians had captured two American spies operating out the CIA branch in Damascus. One of the spies, Farhan Atassi, knew Eli Cohen. The Syrians, now acutely aware that they were the target of active clandestine operations, monitored the comings and goings of anyone connected to the U.S. Embassy in Damascus.
On December 1st, Cohen met with his friend Majeed Sheikh al-Ard for lunch. During the meal al-Ard told him that a few days earlier he had met with a man named “Rosolio.” He let slip to Cohen that Rosolio was actually the Nazi war criminal, Franz Rademacher, hiding in Damascus.
Franz Rademacher at the time of his trial, 1968. Photograph: Karl Schnoerrer, EPA.
Eli Cohen’s ears perked up. He feigned disbelief and told his friend that it was not possible that he knew where Rademacher was hiding. In response, Majeed Sheikh al-Ard telephoned Rademacher. Just forty minutes later, Eli Cohen and Majeed Sheikh al-Ard sat in the Nazi war criminal’s safe house. The apartment was only a ten minute walk from where Eli Cohen lived.
The day after the chance meeting, Eli Cohen happily reported to Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv that he had located a Nazi war criminal. Cohen provided descriptions of Rademacher’s appearance, his exact address and details of surroundings of the safe house. He awaited further orders, but did not receive positive reinforcement from Mossad headquarters. Instead, he was directed to “stop pursuing the Rademacher lead and focus on the mission.”
Mossad headquarters were obviously not aware of the clear and present danger caused by the tripartite meeting. Otherwise, they would have directed Eli Cohen to drop everything and take the first train to Beirut.
US intelligence documents indicate that Majeed Sheikh al-Ard, who once served as an informant for the Americans, tried to continue to be of use to them. He continued to transmit reports to them, enthusiastically reporting the intelligence he gathered from his meetings with the Nazi, Franz Rademacher.
The theory that I have formulated, and which is supported by the documents and testimonials which appear in my book, is that Syrian intelligence was aware of the tripartite meeting that involved Eli Cohen and Rademacher – either in real time or via information they received shortly after the meeting took place.
At this point, it is worth examining how the Syrians would have perceived this meeting.
They noticed Majeed Sheikh al-Ard, who was an informer for the Americans, coming and going through the gates of the U.S. Embassy. The Syrians also knew full and well that “Rosolio” was a Nazi war criminal, up to his neck in espionage.
From right to left: Majeed Sheikh al-Ard, George Saif and Eli Cohen.
At this point you must put yourself in the position of the Syrians and ask yourself – what you would do if you witnessed this meeting between a Syrian businessman and two spies? Would you suspect the businessman as well, and put a tail on him? Well, this is exactly what the Syrians did.
The testimonies of Ahmed Sweidani, Head of Syrian Intelligence, and of the officer who broke into Cohen’s apartment indicate that the Syrians had begun to monitor Eli Cohen. Not long after, they decided to break into his apartment and discovered his spy equipment, including his transmitters and receivers.
The story of the break-in and the analysis of the testimonies indicate that Syrian intelligence had no idea that Eli Cohen was a Zionist spy.
Ma’ariv reports the execution of Eli Cohen, May 18, 1965. Click on the picture to see the full article.
The analysis and the various testimonies and documents can be further examined in the book “Eli Cohen – Open File“.
