Gideon Bohak
An Ancient Babylonian
Text on a Modern
Jewish Amulet
 See fig. 1 For students of Jewish magic and “practical Kab-
Amulet, paper, balah,” a visit to the Gross family home is like a
Morocco, c. 1930 small taste of Paradise. Not only are the hosts
extremely kind and generous, they also are the
keepers of the greatest treasure in the world of
Early Modern and Modern Jewish amulets, magical
texts, and kabbalistic manuscripts. Each time I
visit Lisa and William, on my own or with my grad-
uate students, I see texts and objects I have never
seen before, learn more about the social and tex-
tual history of items I had already seen, and realize
once again how endless are the sources for the
study of this hitherto neglected aspect of Jewish
culture. And yet, of the many hundreds of items in
the Gross Family Collection that I have studied,
there is one particular amulet that I find even more
intriguing than all the rest. It is an amulet that I
have often seen in William’s collection, and origi-
nally thought of as cute but not terribly interesting,
given its young age. But on one occasion, when it
was on display at the excellent “Angels and
Demons” exhibition at the Bible Lands Museum
in Jerusalem, in 2010, I had a closer look at this
351 Gross Family Collection
amulet, and started reading some of its text.1 It was
only then that I realized that much of the text con-
sisted of a long incantation against witchcraft that
is known in much earlier manuscripts as the
Pishra, or “Witchcraft-loosening spell” of Rabbi
Hanina ben Dosa. This spell probably originated
in Babylonia in the Talmudic period, but is partly
based on much older, and non-Jewish, Babylonian
anti-witchcraft spells. And so, the cute but very
modern amulet from Morocco turned out to con-
tain a Babylonian Aramaic text that has been circu-
lating in the Jewish world for a millennium and a
half, and in its turn was based on Akkadian texts
and rituals that were more than a millennium
older. For a historian like myself, such a discovery
immediately turns a modern object from merely
eye-catching to extremely important, whence my
choice to describe it here.
Introducing the Amulet
The amulet in question, GFCTrust 027.011.216, is a
Moroccan Jewish amulet of the twentieth century,
which – according to the data available to William
Windows on Jewish Worlds
Fig. 1
Amulet, paper,
Morocco, c. 1930,
42 × 22.5 cm.
GFCTrust 027.011.216
Fig. 2 Gross – was produced in 1930. It is a calligraphic
Detail of fig. 1 amulet, written on one side of a piece of paper mea-
suring 42 × 22.5 cm, and is well preserved, but for a
few places where the text was slightly damaged by
the folding and unfolding of the amulet (see fig. 1).
Surprisingly, it carries the names of two different
clients, Shlomo son of Leah, whose name is men-
tioned three times, and Shoshanah daughter of
Esther, whose name is mentioned once, in addition
to numerous generic references to “the bearer of
this amulet.” It seems as if the amulet itself was
produced in advance, with numerous generic refer-
ences to whoever might use it, and some spaces left
for inserting the name of a specific client. And the
presence of two names might indicate that it was
“personalized” for both Shlomo and Shoshanah,
probably a married couple, and that it was
352 Gross Family Collection Windows on Jewish Worlds 353 Gideon Bohak
intended to be kept in their home, rather than
worn by one of them.2
Looking at the amulet as a whole, we can see how
the scribe who produced it valued not only its con-
tents, but also its physical form, with blocks of text
written in different directions and creating frames
inside which are embedded calligraphic designs of
two hamsas and two sets of concentric circles, and
with angelic and divine names at the corners of the
frames inside which these designs are embedded.
And if we look more closely at any specific section
of this large amulet (see fig. 2), we see how the
scribe produced this elaborate textual structure, by
first penciling in the basic layout of the entire amu-
let, and then writing the text over the lines he had
previously drawn. But what was the order in which
the different units were inscribed, and how are we
to read the text?
Looking closely at figure 2 (or at any other section
of this amulet), we quickly realize that the text is
not written in a continuous, albeit meandering,
line, but is made up of bits and pieces whose order
cannot be determined from the design itself (note,
for example, the inner line of text within each fin-
ger of the hamsa). Thus, although the amulet is very
legible, many parts of the text would be impossible
to sort out, since we would have bits and pieces of
sentences, but no sense of how to arrange them in
relation to each other. Moreover, in some parts of
the text many of the words are written only in
abbreviated forms (see, for example, fig. 3), which
adds a further complication to the decipherment of
this amulet. But the realization that much of the
text found on this amulet is attested in other manu-
scripts proved to be a major step in its decoding.
Moreover, as the text of the Pishra was too short to
fill the entire manuscript, the scribe copied it up to
its very end, and then added more text from other
sources, including a spell that he copied from a
printed copy of Sefer Razi’el (Book of Raziel), the
most popular book of Jewish magic and “practical
Kabbalah.” Therefore, even in the later parts of the
amulet, where I could no longer use the Pishra text
as my guide in deciphering the amulet, I had other
textual sources that I could use. And after some
trial and error, I could see that the order in which
the different textual blocks were written, and in
which they should be read, is as shown in figure 4.
An Ancient Babylonian Text on a Modern Jewish Amulet
Fig. 3
Detail of fig. 1
This amulet raises many interesting questions.
One question is the relations between text and
form in the production of Jewish amulets. In most
amulets, it is the apotropaic text, symbols and – in
some cases – images that are the most significant,
since it is they that give the amulet the power to
protect its owner. The primacy of the contents
often is manifested in its physical layout, as in the
many cases in which the text stops a few lines
before the end of the actual writing surface. In such
cases, we may assume that the amulet’s producer
reached the end of the spell he was writing, but
since not enough space was left for a new spell, he
left a few lines of blank space. However, in the case
of our amulet the form clearly was as important as
– and perhaps even more important than – the con-
tents, which is why the scribe who produced this
amulet patched together several different texts.
More striking still, he ended the amulet in the mid-
dle of a sentence, since the last words of the entire
amulet are “And all those who rise up against him
to harm him – whether in their actions or in (their)
words or counsel or thought – may you quickly sub-
due them.”3 But in Sefer Razi’el, from which this
text was taken, the sentence runs as follows – “And
all those who rise up against him to harm him –
whether in their actions or in (their) words or coun-
sel or thought – may you subdue them, humiliate
them, and destroy, annihilate, subdue, shake up,
break, (and) annihilate without omitting any limb
354 Gross Family Collection
Fig. 4
Order in which the
different textual blocks of
fig. 1 were written
whoever seeks to harm him.”4 The scribe who pro-
duced our amulet clearly had a pre-designed frame
into which the text had to fit, and if that meant that
he had no room to finish the sentence, he simply
added the word “quickly” before “may you subdue
them,” and cut off the rest of the sentence. In this
case, the form took precedence over the contents.
Another aspect of this amulet – and the one that I
find most intriguing – is the question of the sources
used by our scribe to produce this amulet. One
such source, a printed copy of Sefer Razi’el, would
hardly merit our attention, since the use of printed
books by copyists of modern manuscripts of Jewish
magic and of modern amulets is extremely well
attested. But the bulk of our amulet consists of a
copy of a very ancient Jewish magical text, whose
presence on a modern Jewish amulet is a cause of
great surprise. To see why this is so, we must first
pay closer attention to this ancient Jewish text and
its ultimate origins.
Introducing the Pishra de-Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa
The Pishra de-Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa is an
anti-witchcraft spell that is about two pages long.
It is written in Babylonian Jewish Aramaic, and is
made up of several distinct textual units. First
comes a general introduction and a request of
health from heaven for the person on whose behalf
the text is to be recited, including a long list of evil
Windows on Jewish Worlds 355 Bracha Yaniv The Story behind a Baghdadi Torah Case

Fig. 5 demons who will be kept away from that person.
Fragment from the Cairo Next comes a set of references to ten different
Genizah. aggressive magic rituals which may have been car-
Cambridge University
ried out against the said person, and the name of
Library, Taylor-Schechter
K 1.144 (photograph the angel who would annul them (for example, “If
provided by Cambridge in tombs and paths they worked [witchcraft] upon
University Library) him, Gavliel would release and loosen it from
him”). This is followed by references to witchcraft
worked by female witches, and by male sorcerers,
and who will loosen it. The next section covers all
the days of the week, all the days of the month, all
the months of the year and the twelve signs of the
zodiac, and all seven planetary hours, on which
such rituals may have been carried out (for exam-
ple, “If on the first day of the week they worked
[witchcraft] upon him, Metatron the Great Master
would release and loosen it from him […] If on the
first day of the month […] If in the month of Nissan
and the zodiac sign of Aries […] If on the hour of the
sun […]”). Finally, the text ends with a brief prayer
356 Gross Family Collection
for the patient’s health and for God’s protection
and mercy.
The Pishra’s language is Babylonian Jewish Ara-
maic, and it displays several close parallels with
some of the Aramaic incantation bowls from Sasa-
nian Mesopotamia, thus making a Babylonian
provenance – and an original date more or less con-
temporaneous with the Talmud – virtually certain.5
Moreover, the text displays a certain similarity to
some of the Akkadian anti-witchcraft texts, and
especially the Maqlû-spells, thus making it likely
that here we have a slightly Judaized version of a
much older, “pagan,” spell against witches and
witchcraft. The main difference between the Baby-
lonian texts and the Jewish one is that in the former
it is the Babylonian gods who will loosen the acts
and spells of aggressive magic and witchcraft, but
in the latter it is angels who do the job. This man-
ner of “Judaizing” Babylonian magical texts and
apotropaic formulae is known from other examples
Windows on Jewish Worlds
too, such as the formula “Michael is on my right,
Gabriel is on my left, Uriel is before me, Raphael is
behind me, and the Presence of God is above my
head,” which goes back to “pagan” Babylonian
models, where it is the gods who surround the
reciter of this formula.6
While the Pishra probably originated in Talmudic
Babylonia, the earliest manuscript evidence for this
text is found in the Cairo Genizah, where it is found
on at least nine fragments, dating from the tenth or
eleventh century onwards (see, for example, fig. 5).7
It is also attested in medieval manuscripts from
Ashkenaz and from the Orient, including Vatican,
Bibliotheca Apostolica, MS Heb. 216, whose faulty
text was used as the basis of the only critical edition
of this text.8 Another faulty copy is found in New
York, New York Public Library, MS Heb. 190, of
which I have provided a complete critical edition.9
And there are other copies in manuscripts from
Yemen, Morocco, and elsewhere. Thus, it is one of
the more popular Jewish magical texts of Late
Antiquity and the Middle Ages, not as popular as
Sefer ha-Razim (Book of Mysteries), but much more
popular than the Havdala de-Rabbi Akiva (Havdalah
According to Rabbi Akiva), and more popular even
than the Harba de-Moshe (The Sword of Moses).
However, a reliable critical edition of the Pishra,
that would give priority to the early fragments from
the Cairo Genizah, has yet to be produced.
While the text of the Pishra probably is based on
older Babylonian precedents, its current title might
be a later addition. The root p-sh-r, in the sense of
“to loosen, or dissolve, an aggressive magical spell
or action,” is attested already in the Akkadian lan-
guage, and is well attested in the Babylonian Ara-
maic incantation bowls. There, we also find the
technical term “pishra,” and it is likely that this was
the original title, or descriptive classification, of
our text. But the attribution to Rabbi Hanina ben
Dosa, a Palestinian Jewish miracle worker of the
Second Temple period, seems less than plausible,
and might be a later addition, designed to give the
text greater authority by attributing it to a great Jew-
ish thaumaturge.10 But be this as it may, the title
already is attested in one of the Genizah fragments,
JTSL ENA 1640.13, where the text is called Pishrah
de-R. Haninah ben Dosa, and is applied for the bene-
fit of a named individual – a certain Moshe son of
El‘azar who is also identified, later in the text, as
Moshe son of Sitt al-Ahl.
357 Gideon Bohak
An Ancient Babylonian Text on a Modern
Jewish Amulet
Returning to our amulet, we may ask two different
questions. First, did the scribe who produced our
amulet know that the text he was copying was so
ancient? And second, how did he have access to
such an ancient text? The answer to the first ques-
tion seems easy enough – our scribe probably did
not know, and could not know, that this specific
text was so old, since the Jewish magical tradition
is replete with attributions of texts to Adam, Moses,
Solomon, Hai Gaon, Nahmanides, Isaac Luria and
many others, and the copyists and users of these
texts had no tools with which to assess the authen-
ticity of such claims, and no interest in trying to
ascertain their true date of composition. Our scribe
probably noticed that parts of the spell were writ-
ten in (badly garbled) Aramaic, but probably could
not really tell that this was Babylonian Jewish Ara-
maic, going back to the time of the Babylonian Tal-
mud. Moreover, in all the Jewish magical texts that
I have read, the question of a text’s “antiquity” or
“modernity” never even comes up. The copyists
and users of these texts were worried about their
efficacy, about the halakhic legitimacy of employ-
ing the practices they prescribed, and about the
need to keep at least some of their contents secret.
But they were not bothered by the relative age of the
different textual units at their disposal. It is only I,
as a modern historian, who is worried by such
questions.
So how did our scribe get hold of the text of the
Pishra? To the best of my knowledge, this text has
never been printed, at least not prior to the partial
critical edition of 1986 (see n. 8). But several frag-
ments of the text were found in the Cairo Genizah,
as we already noted, and apparently it remained in
circulation in the modern Jewish world. In Moroc-
can manuscripts of Jewish magic, it is attested, for
example, in New York, Manfred and Anne Leh-
mann Foundation, MS 343, an eighteenth-century
compendium of kabbalistic and magical texts, but
the text of the Pishra as found in that manuscript
differs in many places from that found on our amu-
let, which clearly was copied from another manu-
script. Further research might shed more light on
this issue, by identifying more Moroccan Jewish
manuscripts of magic and “practical Kabbalah” in
which the Pishra has been copied, and comparing
our amulet with them.
An Ancient Babylonian Text on a Modern Jewish Amulet
Fig. 6 Fig. 7
Full view and two Amulet, paper,
half-views of amulet, Morocco, c. 1910,
paper, 43.3 × 27.8 cm.
Morocco, c. 1930, GFC 027.011.746
69.5 × 12 cm.
GFCTrust 027.011.511

358 Gross Family Collection Windows on Jewish Worlds 359 Gideon Bohak An Ancient Babylonian Text on a Modern Jewish Amulet
 world for a millennium and a half or more, and the Pishra text. Thus, if we only had the last two amulets were produced in the early twentieth cen-
whose roots go even deeper, into the “pagan” amulets, we might have thought of them as yet tury, it is quite likely that the producers’ and cli-
­Mesopotamian culture of the first millennium another example of the copying of magical texts ents’ descendants are still alive, and can shed more
BCE. The long term survival of ancient Jewish texts from printed books of Jewish magic, or from Mus- light on their identity. By publishing these amulets,
is, of course, no cause for great surprise, since lim sources, albeit in an elaborate design. But the and highlighting their importance, I hope to
­rabbinic literature, and even more so biblical liter- two amulets that contain the Pishra text cast the encourage these people to tell William Gross, or
ature, have been continuously transmitted for an whole question in a new light. myself, whether more such amulets have been pro-
even longer period of time. But the Pishra de-Rabbi duced, and to let us know by whom, and for whom,
Hanina ben Dosa is not a canonical text, preserved One final question. Who wrote these amulets, and they were produced. And so, on a future visit to Lisa
and transmitted by the entire Jewish people and its who were the clients who acquired them? In deal- and William and their earthly Paradise, I might
establishment. Rather, it is a non-canonical, eso- ing with ancient and medieval amulets, it usually learn more about the social and textual history of a
teric, magical text, frowned upon or simply ignored makes no sense to raise such questions, since we Moroccan Jewish amulet that I find so intriguing.
by the Jewish establishment, and transmitted only are not likely to ever find the answers.11 But as these
among Jewish magicians and experts in “practical
Kabbalah.” We may imagine how it was transmit-
ted from father to son and from teacher to disciple,
and kept on being copied even when its owners
moved from one diasporic community to another
and from one language (Aramaic) to another
(Judaeo-Arabic, Yiddish, Ladino, and so on). It kept
1 11
on being copied even when new magical texts and See Filip Vukosavović, 1701, 42a: “ve-kol Judentum 42, 64, 72, 3 vols. For some of the
ed., Angels and Demons: ha-qamim ‘alav le-hara‘ lo (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, problems involved in such
techniques became available, even when the inven-
Jewish Magic Through the ben be-ma‘asehem ben 1994–1999), vol. 2, no. 22. attempts, see Gideon Bohak
tion of printing made many of the older texts obso- Ages (Jerusalem: Bible Lands be-lashon ben be-‘etzah 8
Franco Michelini Tocci, and Ortal-Paz Saar,
lete, and even when the arrival of modernity was Museum, 2010), 126; and see ben be-mahshavah “Note e documenti di “Genizah Magical Texts
supposed to spell the death of all such spells and also Gideon Bohak and Anne hakhni‘em hashpilem letterature religiosa e Prepared for or Against
“superstitions.” Considering all these factors, the Hélène Hoog, eds., Magie, ve-mager ve-pager parareligiosa giudaica,” Named Individuals,” Revue
anges et démons dans la ve-hakhna‘ ve-na‘na‘ Annali dell’Istituto des Études Juives 174 (2015):
continuous transmission of such a text is really
tradition juive (Paris: ve-shaber ve-pager bli Universitario Orientale di 77–110.
astounding, and our amulet thus becomes one Flammarion, 2015), 134. ‘aliyyat evar kol mevaqshei Napoli 46 (1986): 101–8.
more demonstration of the longue durée vitality of 2
Below, we shall mention ra‘ato.” 9
Gideon Bohak, A
the Jewish magical tradition. three additional amulets 5
And see Gideon Bohak, Fifteenth-Century Manuscript
This, however, is not the end of the story, for our that bear a great “Babylonian Jewish Magic of Jewish Magic: MS New York
amulet is closely paralleled by at least three more resemblance to the one in Late Antiquity: Beyond Public Library, Heb. 190
analyzed here. All three were the Incantation Bowls,” in (Formerly Sassoon 56) –
Moroccan Jewish amulets of the early twentieth
made for a single client only Studies in Honor of Shaul Introduction, Annotated
century. One amulet, apparently produced by the – the first for Zechariah son Shaked, ed. Yohanan Edition and Facsimile.
very same scribe but for a different client, contains of Hadiyyah, the second for Friedmann and Etan Sources and Studies in the
a text that largely overlaps with the one analyzed Shlomo son of Mas’udah, Kohlberg (Jerusalem: The Literature of Jewish
here, and is owned by William Gross (GFCTrust and the third for Eliezer son Israel Academy of Sciences Mysticism 44, 2 vols. (Los
of Yaminah. In all four and Humanities, 2019), Angeles: Cherub Press,
027.011.511; see fig. 6). A second amulet, produced
amulets, the identification 70–122, here 93–95. 2014), vol. 1, 229–31, and
by a different scribe but probably in the same of the clients is by the 6
And see Dan Levene, vol. 2, 187–89.
milieu (given the striking visual similarities mothers’ names, as is Dalia Marx, and Siam 10
For this common
between them), was recently added to the Gross common on almost all Bhayro, “‘Gabriel is on procedure, see Michael D.
Family Collection (GFC 027.011.746; see fig. 7). It Jewish amulets and many their right’: Angelic Swartz, “Book and Tradition
is written in Judeo-Arabic, and displays a spell that non-Jewish ones as well. Protection in Jewish Magic in Hekhalot and Magical
3
The Hebrew words are: and Babylonian Lore,” Literature,” Journal of Jewish
clearly came from the Muslim world, including ref-
“ve-kol ha-qamim ‘alav Studia Mesopotamica 1 Thought and Philosophy 3
Fig. 8 Some Concluding Remarks erences to the Qur’an, to Shu’eib (the Arabic name le-hara‘ lo ben (2014): 185–98. (1994): 189–229; Ra‘anan S.
Amulet, paper, Morocco, We examined a single amulet, which at first sight of the Biblical Jethro, Moses’s father-in-law) and be-ma‘asehem ben 7
For the only Genizah Boustan, “The Emergence
c. 1930, 45 × 28 cm. seems cute, but also very modern, perhaps too even to Jesus son of Mary (‫)עישה בן אומריאם‬. And a be-lashon ben be-‘etzah ben fragment of the Pishra of Pseudonymous
Center of Moroccan-Jewish be-mahshavah, meherah published thus far, T-S K Attribution in Heikhalot
modern to be of great interest to a specialist in third amulet, produced either by the second scribe
Culture, Brussels, 22294 hakhni’em”, and they are 1.144 (see fig. 5), see Peter Literature: Empirical
(photograph provided by ancient and medieval Jewish magic. But once we or by yet another scribe, is owned by Paul Dahan, a
found on the bottom of the Schäfer and Shaul Shaked, Evidence from the Jewish
Center of Moroccan-Jewish pay closer attention to the contents of this amulet, Belgian Jewish collector of Moroccan Judaica (see lower hamsa, where the text Magische Texte aus der ‘Magical’ Corpora,” Jewish
Culture) we realize that it preserves a twentieth-century copy fig. 8). In this third amulet, the text is mostly taken of this amulet ends. Kairoer Geniza. Texte und Studies Quarterly 14 (2007):
of a text that has been in circulation in the Jewish from the printed Sefer Razi’el, and does not contain 4
Sefer Razi’el, Amsterdam, Studien zum Antiken 18–38.

360 Gross Family Collection Windows on Jewish Worlds 361 Gideon Bohak An Ancient Babylonian Text on a Modern Jewish Amulet