Jews and Japanese are often noted for their similarities. They both put weight on tradition, family, education, and veneration of their elderly (all traits they share with other cultures, of course). But I’ve discovered a great distinction between them and I’m wondering what it means.
I’m in the midst of reading a truly spellbinding and, frankly, horrific collection of traditional Japanese ghost stories called, generically enough, Japanese Ghost Stories (Penguin Classics, 2019). Written around the turn of the 20th century by the Irish author Lafcadio Hearn, these stories are so authentic that they are, according to editor and Hearn biographer Paul Murray, “regarded in Japan as classics in their own right.”
Indeed, they are presented as preserved folktales, mostly short, mostly relying on stock characters rather than fully developed ones, many with a dreamlike quality that deliberately obscures the line between reality and fantasy, between the present and the past. And Hearn is here too; he writes himself into the stories as a character who alternately pursues these tales and is suddenly confronted by them in the most unexpected places and ways.
As a collection of folktales preserved for a contemporary audience, Hearn’s work is vaguely reminiscent of the work of a substantial set of authors, including Howard Schwartz, Martin Buber, Nathan Ausubel, Joachim Neurgroschel, and others. And of course S. Ansky, who wrote the masterpiece The Dybbuk, based his play on the traditional folktales and melodies he recorded during an ethnographic mission through Eastern Europe, presciently capturing the last flower of the millennium-long Jewish civilization there before it was almost completely destroyed.
But while the impulse to preserve a fading tradition is common to Hearn and these Jewish authors, the nature of the stories themselves is not. The jacket copy summarizes it nicely: “The dead wreak revenge on the living… and a priest devours human flesh in these chilling Japanese ghost stories. [T]he phantoms and ghouls of traditional Japanese folklore include[e] the headless ‘rokuro-buki,’ the monstrous goblins ‘jikininki’ and the faceless ‘mujina’ who stalk lonely neighbourhoods…. [T]hese [are] terrifying tales.”
Jewish tales include creatures and elements of terror too: demons, succubi, witches, sorcerers, and more. The founder of Chasidim, the Baal Shem Tov, was said to have destroyed a werewolf (actually, it was a twofer victory as the werewolf was also an enchanted sorcerer). But these creatures generally figure into stories that have a moral or teaching point. One must recognize evil where it exists. Vows must be respected. Good will be rewarded. The Baal Shem Tov’s story, for example, demonstrates how the holiness of this great man was manifest even at a young age. Exceptions exist, but they’re notable for being just that: exceptions. For example, a rare, horrific story has a bride turn into a werewolf on her bridal night and, presumably devour her groom. Even this is a quick jump-scare after a buildup of foreboding. It’s nothing like the grotesqueries in these Japanese stories.
My witness for the prosecution: Hearn’s story Ingwa-Banashi. A Lord’s wife is on the brink of death after a years-long illness. The couple profess their love for each other. The wife expresses her wish that her husband’s beautiful, young concubine, Yukiko, should take her place at the head of the household after her death. She asks to see her young rival and urges the girl to always be faithful and attentive to their Lord. And, oh yes, one last thing: she asks if the girl would help her up from her sick bed so she can, one last time, see the double-blooming cherry tree in their garden. The climax of the story is so remarkable that I’ll quote it at some length:
“Lady, I am ready. Please tell me how I best can help you.”
“Why, this way!” – responded the dying woman, lifting herself with an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko’s shoulders. But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of the girl, and burst into a wicked laugh.
“I have my wish!” she cried – “I have my wish for the cherry-bloom – but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!… I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it! – oh, what a delight!” And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died.
The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko’s shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But – strange to say! – this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl – appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain.
Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim; they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held; it was because the flesh of the palms had united itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts!
….At that time the most skillful physician in Yedo was a foreigner – a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful examination he said that he could not understand the case, and that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts. His advice was accepted; and the hands were amputated at the wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they soon darkened and dried up – like the hands of a person long dead.
Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.
Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not dead. At intervals they would stir – stealthily, like great grey spiders. And nightly thereafter – beginning always at the Hour of the Ox – they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease…
Definitely not Jewish.