0.43: Willow: Jewish, Witch, Jewitch?

Kristin is talking with with Rabbi Leah Jordan and Pam Grossman — writer, curator, and teacher of magical practice and history — to dig deep into Willow's Jewishness, her witchy-ness, and how those two identities are in conversation with each other (or how we *wish* they would have been!) across seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This episode contains spoilers through the end of Season 7 of Buffy!

LOCATE YOUR HOSTS UPON THE INTERNET

Rabbi Leah Jordan: @leah_solo; Kehillah North London

Pam Grossman: @phantasmaphile; pamgrossman.com

Kristin Russo: @kristinnoeline; kristinnoeline.com

MORE ON OUR GUESTS

Leah Jordan is Rabbi of Kehillah North London

Pam Grossman is the creator and host of internationally beloved podcast, The Witch Wave ("The Terry Gross of witches" - Vulture), the author of the critically acclaimed books, Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power  (Gallery Books) and What is a Witch (Tin Can Forest Press), and the co-editor of the WITCHCRAFT volume of Taschen's Library of Esoterica series.

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Links from Leah:

how Antisemitism and white supremacy are intertwined

Scholar Matthew Pateman on Willow's "disappearing Jewishness"

great summary of representations of anti-Jewish archetypes in media, with scholar Jonathan Branfman

Concepts in Jewish Tradition: Demons & Demonology, Is There a Jewish Afterlife?, Teshuva, or Repentance, Kabbalah and Mysticism 101, Tikkun Olam: Repairing the World, Maimonides (Rambam) and His Texts, Lilith: Lady Flying in the Darkness

Genesis, chapter 4, verse 7: "Surely, if you try to do right, There is uplift. But if you do not do right Sin crouches at the door; Its urge is toward you, Yet you can be overcome it.”

SVARA: a traditionally radical yeshiva, a queer yeshiva

Nonbinary Hebrew Project

AND kids now are doing Willow Rosenberg-themed b'nei mitzvah!

Links from Pam:

Ezra Rose

Key of Solomon

The Lesser Key of Solomon (Goetia)

Incantation bowls

Hamsa

Mezuzah

Dori Midnight

Rebekah Erev

Kohonet Hebrew Priestess Institute

Ashkenazi Herbalism by Adam Siegel and Deatra Cohen

Margaret Murray

Witch-cult hypothesis

Gerald Gardner

Wicca

Starhawk

Zsuzsanna Budapest

Margot Adler

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Aleister Crowley

Dion Fortune

Tree of Life/Sefirot (Kabbalah)

Kabbalah v. Cabala v. Qabalah

Shedim (or sheydim)

Golem

opshprekherin

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Buffering the Vampire Slayer: @bufferingcast on twitter, facebook, and instagram

Learn more about our team at bufferingthevampireslayer.com/our-team 

Produced by: Kristin Russo, Pam Grossman, and Leah Jordan

With support from Alba Daza and Mackenzie MacDade

Edited by: John Mark Nelson & Kristin Russo

Logo: Kristine Thune

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We acknowledge that we and our team are occupying unceded and stolen lands and territories. Kristin occupies the Lenape territories of the Esopus Lenape Peoples. Jenny occupies the Wabanahkik territory of the Abenaki and Pennacook Peoples. Alba occupies Tiohtià:ke of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. Mack, LaToya, Morgan, and John Mark occupy the lands of the Kizh Peoples.

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