Image by YouTube

Sigal Samuel September 16, 2014

Well, this is weird.

Iraqi TV is rolling out a new satirical series, “Superstitious State,” that portrays the leader of ISIS as the spawn of Satan and — you guessed it — a Jewish woman.

In a promo for the soon-to-come anti-ISIS show, broadcast several times daily on Al-Iraqiyya, we meet a Jewess adorned with a big Star of David necklace. “I hope to get a ring on my finger by someone who will destroy the country,” she says, then points to the red-clad devil, who says, “We will name our child ISIS.” The subtext here is a conspiracy theory, currently circulating in Iraq and elsewhere, that suggests Jews and/or Zionists created ISIS with the intention of ruining Islam.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

So, this Jewess is supposed to be the mother of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi — but she doesn’t give birth to him the good old-fashioned way. Instead, “an egg hatched — and an ISIS-ling was born.” Why?

Funnily enough, however anti-Semitic the subtext of this video may be, it actually reminds me of nothing so much as an old Jewish legend. According to a biblical interpretation recorded in the Talmud, the Zohar and the 9th-century Midrashic text Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, when our original mother, Eve, gave birth to the original child, Cain, it was not a result of her union with Adam. Instead, she spawned Cain with her other lover: the snake — also known as Satan.

Combine that with the fact that the egg in this promo looks like a snake egg (for one thing, the nest is on the ground in the desert, not up in a tree; for another, the camera focuses on a snake at the beginning of the video) and I can’t help but think of the newly-hatched ISIS leader as the biblical Cain.

Which actually serves the intentions of the video-makers pretty well. Cain isn’t just the bastard child, the evil son. He’s also the first murderer in history, having killed his wiser and more righteous brother, Abel. That’s exactly the sort of archetype this video wants us to associate with ISIS.

Of course, I don’t actually think the makers of this satire are purposely picking up on the Eve-Serpent-Cain trope. But given that it’s wormed its way deeply into the historical consciousness, across centuries and across religions, coming to be known variously as the “serpent seed” or “dual seed” or “two-seedline” doctrine, it’s not that surprising to see a glimmer of it reflected in this video.

It’s still pretty weird, though.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount