Sender (Moyshe Lipman) and Nisn (Gershon Lemberger) are two rabbinical students that have also been lifelong friends. They live in separate shtetls (villages) in the Pale of Settlement (a western region of Russia). Both Sender’s and Nisn’s wives are pregnant and will soon give birth. They make a vow that should one of the wives have a boy and the other have a girl, that they would be betrothed to each other. A mysterious and spiritual stranger appears to them. He calls himself "Meszulacha The Messenger" (Ajzyk Samberg). Since the babies have not yet been born, he warns the men that they shouldn’t bind together future generations that don’t yet exist.
The two men return to their villages before they are able to tell their Rabbi, Ezeriel ben Hodos (Avrom Morewski) of their vow. Sender’s wife gives birth to a girl, Leah (Lili Liliana), but dies in childbirth. Nisn’s wife gives birth to a boy, Khonnon (Leon Liebgold), but Nisn drowns in a storm on his way home as his wife is giving birth.
As the years pass, Sender becomes a wealthy rabbi who thinks more about money than Leah. Khonnon, now a rabbinical student, travels to the shtetl of Britnitz unaware of his connection to Sender. Khonnon is welcomed into Sender’s home. Khonnon and Leah fall in love. Since he is a poor boy, Sender never considers him as marriage material for his daughter. Sender makes arrangements with Nachman (Samuel Bronecki) to wed Nachman’s son, Menasze (M. Messinger) to his daughter.
Khonnon, realizing that he has nothing to offer for Leah, decides that the only way to win Leah is through sorcery. He prays to Satan for help. Khonnon is stricken down and wanders the Earth as a restless spirit, or dybbuk. When he returns home Sender finds out too late that Khonnon is Nisn’s son. Before Leah and Menasze are married, Leah becomes possessed by the dybbuk. Sender goes to Rabbi Ezeriel for help. The rabbi determines that the only way to vanquish the dybbuk is to do an exorcism.
“The Dybbuk” was released in 1937 and was directed by Michal Waszynski. It is a Jewish Polish fantasy drama ghost story with operatic influences. The film was based on the 1914 play “The Dybbuk” by S. Ansky.
The movie was shot just prior to WWII. Some of the actors would end up dying in Poland during the Holocaust. Among them; Ajzyk Samberg (The Messenger), who died in the Poniatowa Concentration Camp, Samuel Landau (Zalman the Matchmaker), who died in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Abraham Kurc (Michael), who died in Treblinka Concentration Camp in 1942.
A “dybbuk” is a malevolent wandering spirit that possesses the body of a living person. A “shtetl” is a Jewish village or settlement. “The Pale of Settlement” was a western region in the Russian Empire, in this case Poland, where Jews were allowed to live. Leon Liebgold (Khonnon) and Lili Liliana (Leah) were married in real life.
It’s sort of a combination of a Jewish “The Exorcist” and Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet. Some consider the film a classic and the best Yiddish film ever made.