Hi!

Our Rosh Hashana conversation about vampires came up because we were having a theological discussion about the different roles God plays in our lives. We talked about the different God metaphors we create for ourselves- a “clock maker” who sets the world in motion vs. a “jimmeny cricket” type of God whispering in our ear. This led to a “why do bad things happen” discussion, that led into a “evil things in the world” that led to questions about Judaism’s take on figures such as the devil (and other evil figures like vampires).

To answer your question about Judaism and vampires, here’s a little info:

The Hebrew word “Aluka” (literal translation is “leech”) is synonymous with vampirism or vampires, as is “Motetz Dam” (literally, “blood sucker”). Later vampire traditions appear among the European Jews of medieval Rhineland, in particular the medieval interpretation of Lilith.[32] In common with vampires, this version of Lilith was held to be able to transform herself into an animal, usually a cat, and charm her victims into believing that she is benevolent or irresistible.[32] However, she and her daughters usually strangle rather than drain victims, and in the Kabbalah, she retains many attributes found in vampires. A late 17th- or early 18th-century Kabbalah document was found in one of the Ritman library’s copies of Jean de Pauly’s translation of the Zohar. The text contains two amulets, one for male (lazakhar), the other for female (lanekevah). The invocations on the amulets mention Adam, Eve, and Lilith, Chavah Rishonah and the angels—Sanoy, Sansinoy, Smangeluf, Shmari’el, and Hasdi’el. A few lines in Yiddish are shown as dialog between the prophet Elijah and Lilith, in which she has come with a host of demons to kill the mother, take her newborn and “to drink her blood, suck her bones and eat her flesh”. She informs Elijah that she will lose power if someone uses her secret names, which she reveals at the end.
Other Jewish stories depict vampires in a more traditional way. In “The Kiss of Death”, the daughter of the demon king Ashmodai snatches the breath of a man who has betrayed her, strongly reminiscent of a fatal kiss of a vampire. A rare story found in Sefer Hasidim #1465 tells of an old vampire named Astryiah who uses her hair to drain the blood from her victims. A similar tale from the same book describes staking a witch through the heart to ensure she does not come back from the dead to haunt her enemies.