That's why I think Hamilton had her Jewish vampire hunters using talismans representing Torah, because the Star of David was (I believe) cultural, not spiritual.

Nilly, midway through The X-Files, there was an episode in which an Aryan Nation-style group (yes, they're exactly what they sound like: Neo-Nazis) murdered a young Jewish man, and his about to be bride, insane with grief, created a golem. She'd used some symbols that looked familiar (keeping in mind that my memory of kabbala is nearly forty years old now) and then erased them when she realised the full magnitude of what she'd done.

I'm really wondering about that. Because a golem is an ancient, ancient concept, and surely there would have been symbology as weaponry against them?

The (again, extremely little) I know about the golem is that the thing that animated it was the actual name of G*d written on its forehead, and that the way its creator stopped it was by erasing that name - it was only that power that gave the inanimate matter a spirit, so to speak.

Also, there are very few stories (again, that *I* know of) about this sort of thing - you have to be an extremely special person, both in knowledge and in personality, on order to be able to learn these things without losing your mind completely (you know how many of the real genius mathematicians also had mental ilnesses? I'm guessing it's something similar - touching the rims of the current capacity of the human ability). There are several stories about people who tried to walk in those secret paths and lost either their sanity or their lives.

YES! That's what I'm remembering; she had that symbol and erased it. I'm trying to remember if she took it off his forehead; I think she did. Need to see that episode again; it had some very well-written moments.

CaBil, my question on the utility of the cross before this alleged covenant thing - there were people before Christ, and cultures before Christ, and the mythology of more than one had some version of undead; after all, it's a universal theme.

Is the Christian concept that before Christ, there was no way to repel vampires? Because that's, well, no.

IMO, the novel that did the best job of having vampires--and the repelling of same--make the most sense is The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers. Wonderful, scary-ass book that desperately needs to be back in print. (Lord Byron as vampire hunter--sexy stuff indeed.)

Oh, and just for the record, and again from very sketchy and lacking knowledge, it seems like Judaism doesn't exclude the possibility of the existence of demons and spirits, good and bad. It does forbid un-prepared people to get any hold of the knowledge required to deal with them in any way, however. There are very strict rules as to who is allowed to study kabbalah - it should be a grown-up (somewhere it's said that it should be over 40), with a wife and children and a solid family he built for himself, he should have learned all his life up until then (or, in the word-for-word translation, to fill his stomach with talmud and halakha), and to learn with somebody, never alone. Most of the movies representations of kabbalah are, therefore, quite different than most of what actually gets to take place.

In that X-Files episode, the woman has her wedding ring (an heirloom from a European ghetto, I believe), and they go through the wedding ritual at the end of the episode. I beleive she's saying one of the wedding prayers as she erases the letters from the golem's forehead, whereupon he collapses into dirt at her feet. Lots of people dislike that episode, but I thought it was wonderful.

they go through the wedding ritual

The strange thing is, the wedding ritual is something the man tells the woman. He gives her a ring (that's worth more than, um, I guess I should write a cent, because that's the logical equivalent), and tells her (in front of witnesses, who are an essential part of the ceremony), something freely translated like "you are dedicated to me, by this ring, as in the religion/order of Moses and Israel". Later, there are 7 blessings that somebody else says, not the groom (thankfulness and joy-wishes).

You don't happen to remember the words that she said, do you? Now I'm all curious.

Here's a transcript:

ARIAL: Isaac!

(She has the ring in her hand. The Golem stops choking Mulder and looks at her. He goes to Arial. As he gets closer and out of the shadow, she sees his face and cries out. He takes the ring and holds it at the end of her ring finger.)

ARIAL: (Hebrew) I am to my beloved... as my beloved is to me.

(He puts the ring on her finger. She smiles to him. They curtsy. She kisses his hand tattoo and then erases the Aleph symbol.)

ARIAL: I loved you.

(They look at each other as she cries and his face deteriorates, turning back to mud. Scully comes.)

SCULLY: Mulder...

(She goes to him. He's still laying on the ground catching his breath.)

SCULLY: Are you okay? I heard shots fired. (She helps him up. ) What happened?

(He can't talk. They look over at Arial. She's kneeling over Isaac's body, which has slumped to the floor. She is caressing his shoulder and arm.)

SCULLY: What is she doing?

MULDER: Saying goodbye.

(He had turned to dirt. She picks up a handful and lets it spray over the body as she continues to pray and caress him.)

It was a killer, killer episode. I loved the bit where the Aryan disses Mulder for being Jewish, and of course, Mulder's character purely isn't. But he points out to the Aryan that Christ was a nice Jewish boy...