A reporter from Channel 13 News, Maor Tzur, has reported on his Twitter feed a very strange story from the Hermon Prison.

According to the series of tweets, in the past few days there have been 4 prisoners, both Jewish and Arab prisoners, claiming to be possessed by a dybbuk. The Jewish prisoners requested Rav Dovid Batzri to be brought in to exorcise the dybbuk. Rav Batzri is supposedly a modern-day dybbuk expert and has been involved in [many of] the various dybbuk incidents that have cropped up in recent decades.

Note - I am mixing info from Tzur's tweets and from the news blast of the Hamoked Whatsapp group.

According to Tzur, the rabbi of the prison was brought in to deal with it. It seems he or the warden then involved the medical staff of the prison and the "dybbuk" was dealt with. It also seems a sheikh was involved due to some of the involved prisoners being Arabs. I guess they only requested Rav Batzri, if at all, but the prison claims nobody was brought in from the outside and it was dealt with internally by the prison medical and administrative staff.

To me it sounds like bored prisoners who found a way to generate a couple of exciting days with changed routines. Dybbuks are always fun, though presumably not for the person supposedly possessed by one.

פרסום ראשון ומוזר: בימים האחרונים אסירים בכלא חרמון טוענים שנכנס בהם דיבוק. מדובר על מקרה כנראה רביעי שהיה היום כאשר אסיר החל להשתולל במשך חצי שעה כשהוא צורח שיש בו נשמה ושרוצים להרוג אותו. כאמור, זהו המקרה הרביעי שהיה השבוע. הנהלת הכלא זימנו באופן מיוחד את הרב של הכלא.

— Maor Tzur (@TzurMaor) January 7, 2020

תגובת שב״ס לדיבוק:
לפיקוד בית הסוהר הגיע דיווח על אסיר הטוען כי הוא ׳אחוז דיבוק׳. סגל האגף הגיע למקום לבדוק את טענות האסירים .*לא זומן* שום גורם דת כזה או אחר לכלא.
האסיר מטופל על ידי גורמי רפואה .
לפני מספר חודשים דווח על טענה דומה שטופלה אף היא על ידי גורמי הרפואה.

— Maor Tzur (@TzurMaor) January 7, 2020

The Possession is a documentary "remake" of The Dybbuk.. and Matisyahu stars as the rabbi who exorcises the dybbuk


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A couple of years ago there was a case of a fellow from Brazil who had supposedly been possessed by a dybbuk. The drama went on for a long time, with Rav Batzri performing the exorcism attempts.

Interestingly enough, another dybbuk case was announced the other day. This time it is a dybbuk possibly possessing the body of a female professor from Salonika, Greece. The professor is not Jewish and only speaks Greek and English, yet, according to the reports, she has been mumbling from her throat in Hebrew.

According to Bechadrei, the woman had recently visited Israel and had heard of Rav Batzri in her research on the subject. Because of her being possessed, she contacted Rav Batzri to ask him to exorcise the dynnuk from her body.

Being that they have not yet actually met, and it is only her claiming to be possessed by a dybbuk with no confirmation yet from Rav Batzri, it is premature to say that Rav Batzri is about to exorcise another dybbuk. Premature as it may be, a good exorcism always makes for interesting news...



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This young man, Yaakov Shurin, gives Rav Batzri a run for his money...

Way back at the end of the year 2009 and beginning of 2010 we were witness to the drama of a supposed dybbuk, a number of attempted and failed exorcisms by Rav Batzri, and much debate as to the veracity of the story and the question of the existence of dybbuks in general.

In a shocking revelation, someone from the community in Brazil of the man who had supposedly been possessed is now speaking up. The fellow, Ezra Weiss, according to Bechadrei, is saying publicly what everyone in Brazil already knows - that the possessed fellow is simply a crazy person, and has publicly admitted that he was pulling a fast one.

The guy claims to have learned how to speak from his stomach (a ventriloquism course or two, I guess), along with learning the languages used in the performances (French, German, and Spanish), and then called the local beis din who refused to play along. He then tried Rav Batzri, and we all witnessed the performance.

Yes, some people are just crazy. And some of us will believe anything.

There was an investigative report done on Channel 10 TV show "Shomer Masach" that aired last night.

The report was on the recent dybbuk case of the man from Brazil who was supposedly possessed and he came to Israel for an exorcism that turned out to be unsuccessful. The journalist investigated how these dybbuks and exorcisms worked, and general active mekubalim, speaking with the woman who had supposedly been possessed about 15 years ago and had the dybbuk exorcised by Rav Batzri.

You should watch the whole video..

They walk the viewer through the whole process, with images and clips frmo the recent exorcism attempt and give a lot of background. They also give images from Rav Batzri's previous exorcism. At about 19 minutes into the video they talk to the woman who had supposedly been possessed and had it exorcised. She claims that it is all a fraud and she took part in it. She is now upset at Rav Batzri claiming he never paid her what he promised, and never gave her the copies of the video. She also demonstrated to the journalist how she faked the voice of the dybbuk and played along.

The report continues with other mekubalim and how they snag the public. While they are generally not looking to deceive the public and steal their money, their processes are designed to get people to donate emotionally to their yeshivas and organizations. They spoke with the organizer for the events the mekubalim speak at. He said he represents 15 mekubalim (is he like a talent agent or something?) arranging their events. They don't really take in money at these events, but afterwords is the big take - the people come to the mekubalim and give them lots of money and support over time...

So is it a scam? They speak to 2 analysts - 1 says it is not an intentional scam. He says Rav Batzri probably is not scamming people, but really believes what he is doing is right and true. Why did he pay the woman to fake a dybbuk? He uses these videos to inspire people. Another analyst says it is all about the money and it is a big scam.

I don't know Rav Batzri's intentions, and am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he has no intention to scam people, but it is pretty clear the dybbuk isn't all it is made out to be.

תחקיר שומר מסך - אמנון לוי - פרשת הדיבוק from bhol on Vimeo.

In recent past, we have heard a lot about things like gilguls and dybbuks. There has been lots of debate and arguing, all over the place, between those who believe in there things and those who dont.
Now we have the story of a "cursed" tank. Yisroel Hayom reported today that there is a specific tank many people are considering to be cursed. To the point that the army has removed it from active duty.
This tank was hit and damaged by mortar fire a number of years ago.
The tank then was hit in 2006 by Hamas militants and two soldiers were killed and Gilad Shalit was taken captive, was later repaired and sent back to the front lines and active duty.
The same tank was later attacked, during Cast Lead in Gaza and damaged by anti-tank missiles. The tankist miraculously got out ok.

The tank was then repaired again. Just a short time later it was sent back in and the same tankist was in Gaza in that tank. Hepoked his head out of the tank and was killed by a Palestinian sniper.

Is the tank possessed by a dybbuk? Is it just a "bad luck" tank, like someone's lucky shirt? Is it cursed?

In what seems to have been a crazy week for Judaism, that brought us back to the olden days of the stories of the 14th and 15 centuries, the week had both a gilgul being calmed and released, and a second attempt (this one not conducted by the modern invention of Skype) at the exorcism of a dybbuk.

The exorcism did not go down well, and again the dybbuk proved to be too powerful for Rav Batzri and his team of kabbalists (ghostbusters? dybbuk removers?), and, according to the reports in the various articles I have read, the dybbuk actually was going to accede to Rav Batzri's exhortations for it to depart from the host body, but was going to do so via the mouth. It seems that an oral extraction is considered dangerous and would have killed the host - reports say that the dybbuk started coming up through the throat, as his voice changed and he started choking, when Rav Batzri screamed at it to go back down and not come out that way but only through his toe.

I guess Rav Batzri was able to convince it to not come out via the mouth, but the second half wasn't so convincing. The dybbuk went back down but also chose not to go out through Rav Batzri's preferred doorway. Instead it stayed in the poor Brazilian fellow.

The week closed with an announcement that Rav Batzri is now afraid for his life, as he is concerned the dybbuk will now attempt to harm him, for his attempts at removal. To thwart off the dybbuk's possible intentions, Rav Batzri went to the beis din of the Eida Haredi and had them issue an excommunication (needui) on the dybbuk. Rav Shternbuch, heading the beis din, acquiesced and issued the needui and declared a prohibition on the dybbuk from harming Rav Batzri.

I don't know why they expect the dybbuk to listen to the needui any more than he refused to listen to the demand for his departure from the host body. Regardless, we are in for another interesting week as Rav Batzri is going to make another attempt at removing the dybbuk in the coming days...

I was in the middle of writing this post, when I decided to change it. I was writing about the dybbuk that had recently entered a Brazilian man. There was a whoel story that people went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky on his behalf. After initial investigation he declared it is a real dybbuk and gave them a bracha saying he has no expertise in such things and can do no more than give a bracha. He passed them on to Rav Shteinman, who sent them to Rav Batzri as being the expert in Dybbuk removal.

The problem being the fellow is in Brazil, and they could not figure out how to get him to Israel, Rav Batzri decided to try an innovative method of exorcism. They connected via Skype, allowing Rav Batzri to see the fellow and try to banish the dybbuk.

It seems that it did not work, because now they are going to bring this guy to Israel to see Rav Batzri live, in person, for the removal.

So I was in the middle of writing about how it didn't make sense, as they had made the whole exorcism into a spectacle, in my opinion, and it did not seem that such a public, demeaning method was one that was being conducted with integrity and properly. It was written about when it originally happened, and Ladaat had a video of the attempt via Skype.

Then I saw this post by G6, and that got me thinking in a different direction. Obviously the exorcism did not work via Skype, because of the gedolim's ban on the Internet. What they should have done is used the new Shidduch Vision technology to arrange the meeting. This way they could meet without using the Internet, and not transgress the ban of the gedolim. We could even dub the adjusted application Dybbuk Vision (name courtesy of G6)!

I think this curse of the Chicago Cubs is getting out of hand.... This is a theory I have never heard before and they are going to try to oust the curse/jinx.

I hope it works.