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In ‘The Offering,’ the latest Yiddish-inflected horror movie, a Jewish spirit haunts Hasidic Brooklyn
(JTA) — British filmmaker Oliver Park isn’t Jewish, but he does have a deep appreciation for the Jewish roots of the horror genre that informed his work on “The Offering,” his feature debut as director about an ancient demon set in a Hasidic enclave in Brooklyn.
“Jewish horror stories have been around for thousands of years,” Park told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “All of these fantastic and rich stories come from this Jewish space.”
The first horror movie franchise, he points out, centered on the Jewish Golem monster and was produced in the 1910s, years before “Nosferatu,” the well-known silent vampire film from 1922.
The legend of the Golem, said to have originated in 16th-century Prague, has been credited with inspiring “Frankenstein.”
“Having been a lifelong fan, obsessed horror nut that I am, I’ve always wanted to get into the Jewish space,” Park said.
The demon in “The Offering” is known as Abyzou. “She is this very, very old ancient demon. For all we know, she could be Lilith herself,” Park said, referring to a spirit of darkness and sexuality found in biblical and Talmudic texts.
In the film, which hits theaters and on-demand platforms on Friday (the 13th), a young man (Nick Blood) brings his pregnant, non-Jewish fiancé (Emily Weisman) to meet his long-estranged father (Allan Corduner), a Hasidic man who works at a funeral home and morgue in Brooklyn. Long-buried tensions are revealed and revisited, and there are several lines of Yiddish dialogue.
The screenwriter and producer, Hank Hoffman, is the son of a rabbi and has a background in Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. The main producer, Jonathan “Yoni” Yunger, comes from a Jewish background as well. Hoffman worked in a morgue for a time in his youth.
“Both of them immediately, their brains just exploded with ideas,” Park said. The film was in the making for about six years. He called it “a passion project, and very much their baby.”
“The Offering” was shot in early 2021, with Bulgaria standing in for Brooklyn, and the production was able to continue during a particularly nasty stage of the pandemic. Park called the script “so rich with characters, and so rich with horror, and mythology and rituals, and the occult and esotericism, and all within this beautiful Jewish community.”
Theres has been a boom in the Jewish-themed horror realm in recent years. “The Vigil,” from 2020, took as its subject matter shemira, or the Jewish ritual of watching over a dead body. “The Unborn” was a dybbuk-themed horror movie that came out in 2009 — featuring Gary Oldman as a rabbi — and in 2021, a movie called “Dybbuk” was made in India, in Hindi. That was itself a remake of a 2017 film called “Ezra,” which was made in Malayalam, an Indian language, and involved an Indian Jewish protagonist.
“I’m so excited that in the last 30 or so years, they’ve slowly trickled back through and we’re seeing more and more of them now,” Park said of Jewish-themed horror movies. “So I’m really hoping that there are many more terrifying and disturbing tales that are inspired richly in Jewish folklore.”
Lead actor Nick Blood may have a perfect name for horror — “I think I’m destined to play Dracula one day,” he said — but he described himself as not particularly an enthusiast of the genre. However, he told JTA that the director and writers’ “passion for it convinced me straight away” to star in the film.
Blood said he had some Zoom sessions with a Yiddish teacher in New York, who helped him get words and pronunciations right. Some of the spells and incantations used in the film were in Aramaic, a language with which Hoffman, the screenwriter, is familiar.
“The Offering,” which premiered at festivals last year, comes from Millennium Films, founded by the Israeli-American producer Avi Lerner. Corduner, who plays the father, was raised Jewish, as was actor Paul Kaye (who played Thoros of Myr on “Game of Thrones”), actor Daniel Ben-Zenou and several background actors in the film.
Park and Blood both said that the Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man” was frequently cited in the production of “The Offering,” and not only because of a scene in which a Kabbalah passage appears inside a dead body — much like the Hebrew passage engraved on a dental patient’s teeth in the Coens’ very Jewish movie. In the opening scene of “A Serious Man,” a possible dybbuk appears in a 19th-century shtetl.
“There was an enormous amount of inspiration taken from that film,” Park said.
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Some Tankers Cross Strait of Hormuz Before Shots Fired, Ship-Tracking Data Shows
A satellite image shows the ship movement at the Strait of Hormuz on April 17, 2026, in Space. EUROPEAN UNION/COPERNICUS SENTINEL-2/Handout via REUTERS
More than a dozen tankers, including three sanctioned vessels, passed through the Strait of Hormuz after a 50-day blockade was lifted on Friday, shipping data showed, before Iran reimposed restrictions on Saturday and fired at some vessels.
Reopening the strait is key for Gulf producers to resume full oil and gas supplies to the world, and end what the International Energy Agency has called the worst-ever supply disruption.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday Iran had agreed to open the strait, while Iranian officials said they wanted the US to fully lift its blockade of Iranian tankers.
Western shipping companies cautiously welcomed the announcements but said more clarity was needed, including on the presence of sea mines, before their vessels could transit.
IRAN RESUMES RESTRICTIONS
The ships that passed through the strait on Friday and Saturday via Iranian waters south of Larak island were mainly older, non-Western-owned vessels and included four sanctioned ships, according to ship-tracking data.
Iran arranged passage for a limited number of oil tankers and commercial ships following prior agreements in negotiations, a spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said.
Other ships have been seen approaching the strait and turning back as Iran said it would maintain strict controls as long as the US continues its blockade of Iranian ports.
The UK Navy reported on Saturday that Iranian gunboats fired at some ships attempting to cross the strait.
Some merchant vessels received radio messages from Iran’s navy saying the strait was shut again and that no ships were allowed to pass, shipping sources said on Saturday.
Ship-tracking data showed five vessels loaded with liquefied natural gas from Ras Laffan in Qatar approaching the strait on Saturday morning.
No LNG cargoes have transited the waterway since the US-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28.
Hundreds of ships have been stuck in the Gulf since the conflict started and Tehran closed the strait, forcing Gulf oil and gas producers to sharply cut production.
Top producers such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq and Kuwait say they need steady tanker flows and unrestricted passage through the strait to resume normal export operations.
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Trump Greenlights Russian Oil to Ease Strain on Global Markets After War with Iran
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington, DC, US, March 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
i24 News – The Trump administration has authorized a 30-day emergency waiver allowing the maritime purchase of Russian oil, reversing a hardline stance in an effort to stabilize skyrocketing global energy prices.
The Treasury Department announced Friday that the license for crude and petroleum products will remain in effect until May 16, 2026, responding to intense pressure from international partners struggling with the fallout of the war with Iran.
This policy pivot comes as a surprise after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested earlier this week that no further exemptions would be granted:
“As negotiations with Iran accelerate, the administration seeks to ensure oil availability for those who need it most. We must prevent a total price collapse for consumers while the geopolitical situation remains volatile.”
Ensuring global oil availability is paramount for the US as over 80 energy facilities in the Middle East have been damaged by recent war with Iran. With the November midterm elections approaching, record-high fuel prices at the pump remain a primary vulnerability for the Republican party. By allowing Russian oil back into the maritime flow, the administration hopes to neutralize “pain at the pump” before voters head to the polls.
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UK: Islamist Group Claims to Attack Israeli Embassy with ‘Drones Carrying Radioactive, Carcinogenic Materials’
A UK man has been arrested for allegedly threatening a group of Jews while wielding an ax on Rosh Hashanah. Photo: Tony Webster / Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – British police officers in protective clothing were seen investigating a “security incident” near the Israeli embassy in London on Friday, after a jihadist group put out a video showing it launching two drones allegedly carrying radioactive and carcinogenic materials toward the embassy.
“There is an increased police presence in Kensington Gardens and officers are assessing a number of discarded items. As a precaution, some of the officers who have been deployed are wearing protective clothing. We recognize this may concern local residents and the wider public,” police said in a statement.
“Counter Terrorism Policing London are aware of a video shared online overnight in which a group claims to have targeted the nearby embassy of Israel with drones carrying dangerous substances,” the statement further read. “While we can confirm that the embassy has not been attacked, we are carrying out urgent inquiries to determine the authenticity of the video and to identify any potential link between it and the items discarded in Kensington Gardens.”
The incident comes amid a steep hike in antisemitic attacks in Britain targeting Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions.
The group that released the video was identified as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, a shadowy entity with suspected ties to Iran. It has already claimed seven attacks against Jewish institutions, including an arson attack in London where four ambulances owned by the Hatzolah charity were torched.