In Rain­bow Rosen­bloom, Kokos the dyb­buk may have met her match. Cen­turies spent dis­rupt­ing the lives of unsus­pect­ing Jews hadn’t pre­pared her for Rain­bow — a pork-eat­ing, Shab­bat-ignor­ing, proud­ly gay young woman liv­ing in 1980s Lon­don. But a deal is a deal. And Kokos intends to hon­or her two-hun­dred-year-old com­mit­ment to tor­ment the female descen­dants of one Git­tel, who chose to spurn the woman with whom she was secret­ly involved in order to mar­ry a promi­nent young scholar. 

And that means fig­ur­ing out what to do with Gittel’s unlike­ly progeny. 

The Dyke and the Dyb­buk, by Ellen Gal­ford, takes read­ers on a wild voy­age through the braid­ed jour­neys of Kokos, Rain­bow, and their mot­ley crew of com­pan­ions. Among oth­ers, we meet Nao­mi, a sec­u­lar Jew in a rela­tion­ship with a for­mer nun named Mary-Cather­ine, and a cadre of bick­er­ing aunts who offer heap­ing por­tions of food and unwant­ed advice in equal mea­sure. Oh, and an array of con­niv­ing (but lov­able) demons with var­i­ous spe­cial haunt­ing skills. 

It’s a rau­cous ride through time and space. Despite being nar­rat­ed entire­ly by the dyb­buk Kokos, The Dyke and the Dyb­buk hops from cen­tu­ry to cen­tu­ry, from the phys­i­cal to the meta­phys­i­cal, and (at one point) from rain­drop to rain­drop, with­out miss­ing a beat. A dyb­buk, after all, is famous for pos­sess­ing its vic­tims, and the author takes full advan­tage of this myth­i­cal capability.

As the sto­ry unfolds, the iden­ti­ties of heroes and vil­lains become increas­ing­ly mud­died. Every­one, it turns out, is both endear­ing and infu­ri­at­ing — depend­ing on the con­text. Kokos, a tra­di­tion­al­ist, is try­ing to do her job, even as the world of haunts and ghosts becomes steadi­ly more cor­po­rate. Rain­bow is try­ing to fig­ure out how to rec­on­cile the Jew­ish and queer aspects of her iden­ti­ty. Anya, the woman who orig­i­nal­ly cursed Git­tel? Well, she’s just try­ing to nurse a bro­ken heart. The author refus­es every oppor­tu­ni­ty to cave to stereo­types, opt­ing instead for depth that encour­ages empathy. 

Gal­ford achieves this, in part, by mak­ing Kokos so hilar­i­ous. A demon who spe­cial­izes in tor­ment­ing Jews should have extra chutz­pah and verve. It also helps that the dyb­buk is an expert in Jew­ish cul­ture, tra­di­tion, laws, and man­ner­isms. When she declares Rainbow’s excep­tion­al­ly obser­vant Aunt Goldie ​“my kind of girl,” one can’t help but smile. It’s clear­ly true: Kokos quotes every­thing from the Tal­mud to Mar­tin Buber (she refers to the Jew­ish canon as ​“one read­ing list you’ll nev­er catch up on,” sug­gest­ing ​“maybe that’s why all those teenaged yeshi­va schol­ars look so har­ried.”) Despite being called to bedev­il Jews, she clear­ly admires these peo­ple. Iron­i­cal­ly, being pos­sessed by a dyb­buk offers Rain­bow an avenue for self-accep­tance, too.

The Dyke and the Dyb­buk was first pub­lished in 1993 and remains stun­ning­ly rel­e­vant. Besides the absence of mod­ern-day tech (smart­phones, GPS, tablets, and the like), the nar­ra­tive arc could have been writ­ten today. We still live in a world where the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty grap­ples with ques­tions of belong­ing, gen­er­a­tional chasms, and the ongo­ing chal­lenge to hold up an umbrel­la large enough to shel­ter Jews like Rain­bow, her aunt Goldie, and every­one in between. 

Gal­ford has some ideas on how to square these cir­cles, but no sol­id answers. The trick, per­haps, is in avoid­ing con­crete truths alto­geth­er. ​“You can’t spend all those cen­turies work­ing with my par­tic­u­lar client group with­out learn­ing some­thing from your sub­jects about sur­vival,” quips Kokos. Sur­vival, described here, means adapt­ing. Keep­ing your mind open. After all, redemp­tion may come from the most improb­a­ble of places.