Jewish Superstitions and Folk Beliefs: Ayin Hara, Red Strings, and Kenahora

Kenahora

Let’s say you’ve just heard wonderful news — your daughter got into medical school, your son is expecting a baby, your business had its best quarter ever. Your grandmother, may she rest in peace, would have responded to this news in two stages:

Stage one: Genuine, heartfelt joy. Stage two: Immediate, instinctive terror that something terrible will happen now because you mentioned it out loud.

This is the emotional landscape of Jewish superstition — a universe in which every piece of good news comes with a warning label, every happy occasion requires protective rituals, and the phrase most commonly associated with joy is a spit sound followed by a Yiddish word that means, roughly, “don’t let the evil spirits hear.”

Judaism’s official theological position is clear: superstition (darchei Emori, “the ways of the Amorites”) is forbidden by the Torah. The Rambam (Maimonides) would have been appalled by half of what follows. And yet Jewish culture is drenched in folk beliefs that have survived for centuries, passed from grandmother to grandchild with the same authority as any blessing.

The Evil Eye (Ayin Hara)

The ayin hara — the evil eye — is the granddaddy of Jewish superstitions. The belief, shared with many cultures around the Mediterranean and Middle East, holds that envy can cause real harm. When someone looks at your good fortune with jealousy — or when you display your blessings too openly — you become vulnerable to misfortune.

The Talmud takes the evil eye seriously. Rabbi Yochanan is quoted as saying that ninety-nine out of a hundred deaths are caused by the evil eye (Bava Metzia 107b). Whether this was meant literally or metaphorically is debated, but the fear is real and ancient.

How to ward it off:

• “Bli ayin hara” (“without the evil eye”): Said after mentioning something good. “The baby is healthy, bli ayin hara.”
• “Kenahora” (from the Yiddish kein ayin hora, “no evil eye”): Same function, more casual. “She got a promotion, kenahora.”
• “Poo poo poo” (or “tfu tfu tfu”): A symbolic spitting sound, meant to ward off evil spirits or the evil eye. Often accompanied by three spitting motions over the left shoulder. Your grandmother did this. You probably do too.
• The hamsa: A palm-shaped amulet, sometimes with an eye in the center, hung on walls or worn as jewelry. Common in both Jewish and Muslim cultures across the Middle East and North Africa.
• The red string: A red thread worn around the left wrist, associated in popular culture with Kabbalah, is said to ward off the evil eye. Madonna made it famous; your bubbe had one first.

Don’t Count People

It is a widespread Jewish custom to never count people directly. If you need to know whether you have a minyan (the quorum of ten needed for certain prayers), you don’t count “one, two, three…” Instead, you might use a ten-word verse from the Bible — “Hoshia et amecha, uvarech et nachalatcha, ur’em v’nas’em ad ha’olam” (Psalm 28:9) — pointing to one person per word.

The origin of this prohibition is biblical: when King David conducted a census of the Israelites (2 Samuel 24), a plague followed — suggesting that counting people attracts divine punishment. The Talmud elaborates: counting creates vulnerability to the evil eye.

In practice, this means that Jews have developed an extraordinary number of creative workarounds for determining how many people are in a room without actually counting them.

Naming Practices

Ashkenazi: Don’t Name After the Living

Among Ashkenazi Jews (of Central and Eastern European descent), it is considered bad luck — even dangerous — to name a child after a living relative. The folk belief is that this could confuse the Angel of Death, who might come for the baby instead of the older person, or that the living person’s soul could be diminished.

Instead, Ashkenazi Jews name children after deceased relatives — a practice that serves the beautiful dual purpose of honoring the dead and preserving family memory. When your grandmother says, “The baby is named after my mother, may her memory be a blessing,” that’s this tradition at work.

Sephardi: Name After the Living

Sephardi Jews (of Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern descent) have the opposite custom: naming a child after a living grandparent is considered a great honor. A Sephardi grandfather might have multiple grandchildren bearing his name during his lifetime.

The Ashkenazi-Sephardi naming difference is one of the most visible cultural distinctions between the two communities, and it occasionally creates awkward moments in intermarriage between the traditions.

Don’t Praise a Baby Too Much

Related to the evil eye, there is a strong folk tradition against praising a baby excessively — or at all. Saying “What a beautiful baby!” is, in the superstitious framework, like painting a target on the child. The evil eye, drawn by envy, might harm the infant.

Protective responses include:

• Spitting (“poo poo poo”) after the compliment
• Saying “kenahora” or “bli ayin hara”
• Deliberately insulting the baby (“What an ugly child!”) to throw off evil spirits — a practice that has confused many non-Jewish visitors to Jewish homes

This impulse is not unique to Jews — many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures share similar beliefs — but the Jewish version is delivered with a particular intensity of anxious love.

Breaking the Glass at a Wedding

When a Jewish wedding reaches its climax, the groom (and in many modern ceremonies, both partners) stomps on a glass wrapped in a cloth, shattering it while the crowd shouts “Mazel tov!”

The accepted explanation is that the breaking glass commemorates the destruction of the Temple — a reminder that even in our greatest joy, we carry the memory of loss. But the folk tradition adds a layer: the loud noise is said to scare away demons and evil spirits that are attracted to happy occasions.

Both explanations coexist comfortably, which is very Jewish: theology and superstition, side by side, both serving the same emotional need.

Other Common Superstitions

• Opening and closing scissors: Opening scissors (or other cutting implements) without cutting anything is considered bad luck — it “cuts” your good fortune.
• Empty pockets at a new home: When moving into a new house, bring bread and salt first — bread so you’ll never go hungry, salt for flavor and preservation.
• Don’t walk over someone: Stepping over a person lying on the ground will stunt their growth. (If you accidentally do it, you must step back over them.)
• Garlic: Hanging garlic in a doorway wards off evil spirits. This one overlaps with half the cultures on the Mediterranean.
• Upside-down books: Never place a Jewish holy book (siddur, Torah, Talmud) upside-down. This one is more respect than superstition, but the anxiety it produces feels the same.

The Tension Between Law and Folk Practice

Jewish authorities have always had a complicated relationship with superstition. The Torah explicitly forbids sorcery, divination, and consulting the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10-12). Maimonides, the great medieval rationalist, argued forcefully against all superstitious practices.

And yet the Talmud itself contains passages that seem to validate folk beliefs — evil eye warnings, instructions for protective amulets, and acknowledgments of demonic forces. The boundary between “forbidden superstition” and “accepted custom” has never been entirely clear.

In practice, most Jews navigate this tension instinctively. They know, intellectually, that saying “poo poo poo” after good news doesn’t do anything. They say it anyway. Because when it comes to protecting the people you love, what’s the harm in a little extra caution?

As the old Yiddish saying goes: “You don’t have to believe in the evil eye — but you should be careful anyway.”