© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, | doi: ./-
Aries – Journal for the Study
of Western Esotericism () –
ARIES
brill.com/arie
Three Charms for Killing Adolf Hitler
Practical Kabbalah in ww2*
Yuval Harari
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
yharari@bgu.ac.il
Abstract
This article deals with mystical-magical activities carried out in Jerusalem by kabbalists
and rabbis during the years of the Third Reich as part of their struggle against the
Nazi threat. It focuses on a page written for Eliyahu Mizrahi Dehuki, a relatively
unknown Jerusalem expert in practical Kabbalah, containing three magic recipes for
killing Adolf Hitler. The article opens with a discussion of the tradition of practical
Kabbalah and the role of aggressive magic within it. It then proceeds to describe the
two-pronged (defensive and aggressive) struggle that Jerusalem kabbalists and rabbis
conducted against the Nazi foe during ww2. The discussion then turns to Eliyahu
Mizrahi and to the page that was sent to him. The concluding section meticulously
examines these magic recipes and the ritual acts they offer in the context of other
insider sources, attesting to the nature and the symbolic language of Jewish aggressive
magic.
Keywords
Jewish magic – practical Kabbalah – harmful magic – magic recipes – ritual violence –
ww2 – Eliyahu Mizrahi Dehuki – Jerusalem kabbalists
* This is an abridged and revised version of my Hebrew article “Shalosh segulot laharog et Adolf
Hitler: perek be-toldot ha-kabbalah ha-maʿasit ba-meʾah ha-ʿesrim,” Zion 81 (2016): 177–213. I
am grateful for the publisher’s permission to publish it in English. Thanks to Gideon Bohak,
Jonathan Meir and Kimi Kaplan for their helpful comments. The article was translated by
Batya Stein.