HOLLE'S CRY: UNEARTHING A BIRTH GODDESS IN A GERMAN JEWISH NAMING CEREMONY

Abstract

One avenue of inquiry in feminist spirituality has been the exploration of folklore and folk ritual related to women. Folk ritual often contains elements from outside Jewish law and tradition, imported from idiosyncratic or syncretic local custom, and may therefore contain a hint of the theological imaginings of Jewish women- or even a source of images of the feminine Divine. One of the folk rituals of central Europe is the German Jewish baby naming ritual, used for both girls and boys, known as Hollekreisch (also Holekreisch, Holegrash, or Houlegraash). In this ritual, family and friends gave a child a name (usually a secular name), raised the infant's cradle three times, and, in some areas and periods, called the name of Holle. Scholars now agree that this ceremony, whose origins lie in the Middle Ages, likely stemmed from the legend of Frau Holle, a German mythic figure associated with birth, death, the cycle of seasons, the household, and the underworld. An examination of medieval Jewish legend and ritual from central Europe confirms that some Jews knew of Frau Holle, whom German women worshipped throughout the Middle Ages in spite of Church decrees forbidding it. Many modern scholars of Jewish folk custom, attempting to understand Holle's presence in a Jewish ritual, have read the Teutonic legends of Frau Holle to suggest that she is a witch and a stealer of children. They conclude that the Hollekreisch ceremony was a ritual protecting the newborn from demons. However, if one examines all the available sources from the Middle Ages to the present about Frau Holle, or Holda- and the numerous almost identical Central European goddess-figures associated with life, death, witchcraft, and children, such as Perchta, Frau Gode, Frau Venus, Frau Harke, Frau Frick, and Frau Stampa1 - she appears as an ambivalent figure. In European legend, to 62 NASHIM: A Journal of Jewish Women 's Studies and Gender Issues. © 2005