Magic, Dreams, and Occultism in East European Jewish Culture

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

This panel examines the place of esoteric practice in East European Jewish culture. The three papers address different cultural valences of East European Jewish esotericism, asking what role esoteric and magical practices played in the lives of Russian and Polish Jews in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While the panelists attend respectively to folk magic, hasidic spiritual practice, and modern occultism, their papers reflect a common concern on the part of East European Jewry with engaging unseen dimensions of reality.

Natan M. Meir discusses the historical and cultural underpinnings of “Sholesh noshim,” a polymorphic magical incantation against the evil eye employed by East European Jews well into the twentieth century. Meir argues for the importance of magical practice in our understanding of traditional East European Jewish culture, while noting that this popular and widely disseminated incantation echoes earlier biblical, rabbinic, and kabbalistic sources, as well as certain Christian influences. Elly Moseson’s paper presents the dream diary of the Polish hasidic rabbi Akiva Meir of Lukow, kept for nearly forty years up to his death in 1918. This dream diary is unique in the attention it gives to its authors thoughts and mental states during sexual intercourse. Moseson examines the diary in comparison to other extant hasidic dream diaries and demonstrates Akiva Meir’s implementation of earlier hasidic views on dreams and revelation as a lived spiritual practice. Samuel Glauber-Zimra’s paper examines the emergence of occult practitioners in early-twentieth-century East European Jewish society. These men and women modeled themselves on the latest European interest in both scientific language and an imagined Orient, casting themselves as telepathists, psychic mediums, and fakirs. Many of these Jewish occultists professed an expertise in Kabbalah, at times blending Jewish esoteric traditions with contemporary occult tropes. They thus took part in the creation of a distinctly modern Jewish esoteric culture forged from Kabbalah, traditional Jewish magical practice, and European occultism.

Sub Unit

• Jewish Mysticism

Chair

• Marla Segol, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Individual Presentations

• “Three Women Sitting on a Crag”: The Inner Worlds of an East European Folk Incantation - Natan M. Meir, Portland State University

• Sex, Dreams and Mystical Revelations: A Hasidic Dream Diary from the Turn of the Twentieth Century - Elly Moseson, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

• Kabbalist-Fakir or Telepathist-Rabbi? Introducing East European Jewish Occultism - Sam Glauber-Zimra