i saw your post about irish werewolves, and do you know where i could find information on jewish werewolf stories/folktales/lore etc? 👉👈
Hello! This took me a while to answer, but I was reading different books from my library because I wanted to get a good basis of what was available there before I tried to approach what the internet might try to tell me 😅
What I learned was there is actually a long history of Jewish-werewolf folklore! This article covers it pretty nicely.
Basically, there's a verse in the Torah that says:
Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he consumes the foe. And in the evening he divides the spoil. — Genesis 49:27
Medieval commentator, Rabbi Efraim ben Shimshon theorized that this verse indicated that Benjamin (one of the twelve sons of Jacob) could transform into a werewolf.
Something about Jewish werewolves is they keep their minds when they shift. "The ancient rabbis argued that because the werewolf is still 'made in the image of G-d', they had a soul, and thus could not lose control of themselves when they shifted". (Benji is a Ravenous Werewolf p. 284).
This also means that they likely can control when they shift, rather than outside forces like the moon playing a factor.
So there's definitely a bases for a story that explores Jewish-werewolf themes. In fact, I found a really good one called Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf by Deke Moulton.
It's a juvenile novel and a quick summary from Good Reads is: Benji Zeb has to balance preparing for his bar mitzvah, his feelings for a school bully, and being a werewolf in this heartfelt, coming-of-age novel.
I would highly recommend reading this novel if you aren't Jewish and are thinking about writing a fic with a Jewish werewolf. It's written by a Jewish author and gives a really good look into what being a Jewish werewolf could be like, from a Modern Orthodox Jewish depiction. It will give you a good idea about how living by the Jewish faith might effect being a werewolf.
(Also the main character is gay, and it goes into his faith-based perspective on that too.)
A few things in particular I noted: there's a rule in the Torah that says you can't eat meat that's been 'torn by wild beasts'. Which prevents Jewish werewolves from running wild.
It's an interesting restriction because then your werewolf character would not be able to simply survive as a wolf forever, they would need to change back to eat.
Secondly: In the book Benji explains that he can't transform into a wolf on Shabbat. This is because it is supposed to be a day of rest and "It was decided long ago that transfoming into a werewolf violated the melachot of makeh bepatish, or "striking the final hammer blow," which is like, a really poetic way to say you can't complete something on Shabbat. There's no halfway to becoming a werewolf—once you start a transformation you have to complete it. You either become a wolf or a human. And because we choose when we shift, it's considered a form of work, so no transformations." (p. 141).
Which is another interesting restriction. In order to keep that mitzvah (commandment), the Jewish werewolf character would need to either stay completely human, or completely wolf over the Sabbath.
In the book, the werewolf trait is passed down genetically, with both parents needing to carry the gene. All werewolf genes originated from the tribe of Benjamin initially, even if the parents are not Jewish, their ancestors somewhere along the line were.
A genetic component is not always the reason behind a Jewish werewolf. This reddit thread has a video that goes into other Jewish depictions of werewolves in media and how the 'otherness' of werewolves speaks deeply to many Jewish experiences.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for now. I hope it gives you a good basis if you want to do more research on your own. Definitely give that book a look as well as the video on reddit! I found it very helpful.
