Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of Jewish Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
72,1 (2021) 164-190
Keywords:
Simeon ben Shetah Legends
;
Talmud Yerushalmi. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Witches in rabbinical literature
;
Women in rabbinical literature
Abstract:
This study analyses the cosmology and theology being shaped by alternative spiritualities regarding the link between witchcraft and women. It raises issues of secularization and re-enchantment, religious/spiritual identities and feminism. The case study is the Israeli alternative spiritualities’ leaders re-narration of a tale from rabbinic literature about the Ashkelon witch-hunt led by Rabbi Shim’on ben Shatach. This tale has been reshaped in different ways by spokespersons who represent various spiritual Jewish-Israeli paths. All alternative spiritual texts analysed here demonstrate their authors’ identification with the rejected anti-heroines, the Ashkelonian witches. Some appropriate Judaism, whilst others criticize it; some write from within it, others from without. The alternative spiritual texts reflect different cosmological views contending with issues of secularization versus re-enchantment, as well as various theologies or thealogies, and different religious feminist tones.
DOI:
10.18647/3487/jjs-2021
URL:
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