THE DYKE AND THE DYBBUK by Ellen Galford

Saturday, January 23, 2021 - 6 pm Pacific - In pre-modern England, a Jewish lesbian invokes a curse on her unfaithful lover Gittel's marriage to a man. The curse results in the serial possession of 33 generations of Gittel's female descendants by a rambunctious female dybbuk. The novel describes what happens when the dybbuk takes possession of Rainbow Rosenbloom, a modern-day Jewish lesbian living in London and the ninth generation of Gittel's offspring. A woman dybbuk!? Could such a thing exist? Jewish lesbians? Oh, my G-d! What would S. An-sky, author of the play The Dybbuk, have made of THIS one? Jewish feminist writer Ellen Galford's funny, perceptive and irreverent novel skewers Jewish orthodoxy, completely re-imagining the folk myth of spiritual displacement by a male dybbuk of his dissociated female host. Ready for an exorcism, anyone?

A free download of the book is available here: https://archive.org/details/dykedybbuk00galf

Or order the book new or used on Amazon, Abe, or other booksellers:

https://www.amazon.com/Dyke-Dybbuk-Ellen-Galford/dp/1878067516/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U4C33DBB7PAL&dchild=1&keywords=the+dyke+and+the+dybbuk&qid=1609350248&s=books&sprefix=the+dyke+and+t%2Caps%2C254&sr=1-1

And please read Items 1 & 2 for our discussion! Item 1 compares The Dyke and the Dybbuk to other brilliantly creative feminist novels that re-make the dybbuk theme. Item 2 interprets the new Wonder Woman movie, WW84, as a play on the dybbuk theme. Other items are added below for your interest.

Item 1.

Legutko2010_FeministDybbuks

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Download PDF • 851KB

Item 2.

https://forward.com/culture/460988/is-wonder-womans-love-interest-a-dybbuk/

Item 3.

Chajes_DybbukPossession

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Download PDF • 1.35MB

Item 4.

Dybbuks_and_Jewish_Women_in_Social_Histo