Lilith in “Lilith”

From this magazine’s very first issue 50 years ago, when “The Lilith Question” by Aviva Cantor noted that “The Lilith story may be a clue to our own history, ” one that honors “rebellious behavior of women in the past, ” Lilith Magazine, and our readers, have loved talking about Lilith, the figure.

Back in 1998, the age of female-fronted rock festival Lilith Fair, Sarah Blustain noted that reclaiming Lilith was suddenly on trend. “Seducer of men? Killer of babies? No matter what the old rabbis said—Lilith isn’t a demon anymore,” she wrote, adding that “we really knew things were turning around when a woman called to ask our editors’ opinions on naming her baby Lilith. (All in favor!)”

In 2016, Monette Chilson wrote a children’s book called My Name is Lilith. “I recognized in Lilith a vital piece of the creation mythology that was missing for me,” Chilson told Yona Zeldis McDonough in 2016. “By telling this story to children, we can begin building a generation who has fewer gaps in the archetypal understanding of what it means to be a woman….”

More recently, in 2023, the Barbie movie’s climactic emotional scene—between Barbie creator Ruth Handler and her ‘daughter,’ Barbie—made writer Kate Adina Hennessey think of God and Lilith, imagining a ‘new midrash’:

“Creator and creation, God and humankind, mother and daughter. Lilith is behind the scenes, whispering through Barbie’s pink lips into our psyches: ‘This is how things could be. ’”