Let's talk about the Devil Card in Tarot.

We're specifically going to talk about the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and all decks modeled after it.

While it is by no means the first ever tarot deck, it is one of the most popular & many popular decks are based on its drawings.

Here is the Devil card---half man, half goat, half-bird, half-bat--this Devil is influenced heavily by Christianity. But let's focus on it's upright hand, which is held aloft in the priestly blessing of Judaism, as you can see in the next photo.

Why would The Devil be doing this?

Let's look at the history: this deck was created with strong influences of Christianity & the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

For centuries in Europe, Jews were persecuted & murdered for our supposed connection to the Devil.

This stemmed from the belief that Jews killed Jesus (we didn't) & spiraled from there. Jews were associated with having horns, tails, & other common symbolism of the Devil (which was also conflated with some pagan deities that were demonized), but all in all, Jews = The Devil...

So why is it there?

Inspired by Golden Dawn, there is a lot of stolen Jewish symbolism in these cards-including the literal name of Gd in Hebrew on the Wheel of Fortune.

This isn't surprising, as while it steals from Jewish mysticism, it has a long history of antisemitism.

Whether or not it was Smith's intention, the imagery is telling: Christian imagery is upheld and sanctified, while Jewish symbolism is associated with the Devil, an age-old trope rooted in heavy antisemitism.

As a person in witchy spaces (often not Jewish), I have seen new age witches, practitioners, and pagans point out this very imagery--looking to it as confirmation of their antisemitism.

Christian hegemony thrives in witchy spaces, even if the people swear they hate Christianity.

It is important to me, as a Jewish person, that sacred Jewish symbolism isn't constantly associated with the Devil, even in the form of a tarot card.

Especially considering people use it to justify their antisemitism and association of Jews with evil.

Of course, not every tarot deck includes this imagery-even some of the decks inspired by the RWS deck don't-just as they have worked to remove the Christian imagery, but many people continue to leave it in there & propagate the idea that Jews are evil or associated with the Devil

To be clear, The Devil card is fine. I just think we should remove the imagery. You could literally just draw the fingers closed (you know, as they were before the RWS deck)... again, not "cancelling" the Devil card (??) in any way