Medieval Jewish Amulets to Facilitate Childbirth and Ensure a Quick Delivery

Childbirth has always been a very traumatic experience, fraught with dangers both for
the parturient woman and for the newborn child. It therefore is not surprising to note the
ubiquity of Jewish medical and magical recipes designed to alleviate some of the dangers
of childbirth. In this paper, I publish four amulets from the Cairo Genizah that were
intended to facilitate childbirth and ensure a quick delivery. These amulets use biblical
verses, magic squares, angel names and short adjurations in order to help the parturient
woman deliver her baby, or the dead fetus that is in her womb, as quickly as possible.
Such amulets were ephemeral objects, discarded soon after their use, and are therefore
extremely rare. But in the Cairo Genizah, where many used texts were deposited, these
amulets too found their place of rest.