Richardson, Roderick2025-08-292025-08-292025-08-262025-08-26http://hdl.handle.net/1993/39273This thesis is a study of the Black Wedding, a Jewish folk ritual which attempts to ward off an epidemic by selecting two disenfranchised people, on the periphery of the community, and marrying them to each other in a graveyard. The thesis will first analyze the Jewish context of this practice, then its broader, non-Jewish context. Finally, it will examine accounts of Black Weddings from different historical periods, concluding with a close reading of a Hasidic story. There is a longstanding Jewish awareness of boundaries, often related to the holy and the unholy. The disenfranchised were often seen as sources of plague. By incorporating them into the community through a Black Wedding, boundaries were redrawn to preserve communal sanctity. This Jewish practice emerged in a cross-cultural environment where marriage blurred the boundaries between life and death. The Black Wedding drew on both Jewish and non-Jewish beliefs and customs and was intended to protect non-Jewish neighbours as well. Historical accounts of the Black Wedding show the gradual acceptance of this originally controversial practice, and its use by leaders seeking authority, especially Hasidic Rebbes. The Hasidic story which is the focus of the final chapter illustrates the range of meanings that the Black Wedding eventually took on, going as far as a sense of cosmic reconciliation. This thesis builds on the work of Natan Meir, Jeremy Brown, and Hanna Węgrzynek who have recently contributed to the scholarship regarding the Black Wedding and the development of this Jewish folk ritual. This study also draws on the theoretical work of Mary Douglas, Arnold van Gennep, and Michael Satlow who have contributed scholarship on rituals and boundaries. In bringing these scholars together, this thesis contributes to the ongoing discourse regarding folk religious practices and how they continue to develop and evolve through historical accounts and memory.engReligionEpidemicCholeraHasidic