Call For Papers: Nashim no. 38 Women in Jewish Magic and Mysticism

For issue no. 38 of Nashim (Spring 2021), under the consulting editorship of Rebecca Lesses of the Jewish Studies program of Ithaca College, we are seeking contributions from scholars in religious studies, history, philosophy, anthropology and literature on a range of topics within the general subject of women in Jewish mysticism and/or Jewish magic (ritual practices to gain power), within a temporal range from antiquity to the present. Gershom Scholem famously wrote: "the long history of Jewish mysticism shows no trace of feminine influence" (Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism [1941], p. 37), but recent research has disclosed the presence of women at various points in the history of Jewish mysticism (for example, the visionary women described by Hayyim Vital in his sixteenth-century mystical diary). Jewish women both have had a reputation as magical practitioners (in literary sources) and have been involved in a range of ritual activities from antiquity to the present (for example, by their participation in the production of Aramaic incantation bowls and rituals involving them, in late antique Babylonia).

Proposals for submissions to the issue may address but are not confined to the following subject areas:

• • Women's reputation as practitioners and participation in magical practices in Palestine, Babylonia, around the Mediterranean basin and in Europe in the ancient and medieval periods.

• • Were women involved with the Ḥasidei Ashkenaz and kabbalistic groups in medieval Europe (for example, in Spain)?

• • Women as visionary mystics in pre-expulsion Spain and in the Sephardic diaspora in Safed and other locations in the Ottoman Empire.

• • Women in Hasidism, including women hasidic leaders and women's participation in hasidic kabbalistic rituals.

• • Women's involvement in ritual practices to gain power among Jews in eastern Europe and North Africa.

• • Women's leadership of and participation in contemporary Jewish magical and mystical rituals and groups centered around these rituals.

We hope to receive proposals both from emerging scholars and from scholars who are already established in their fields.

Proposals for submissions of up to 12,000 words, not previously published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, should be sent to Deborah Greniman, Managing Editor of Nashim, by February 1, 2020, at nashim@schechter.ac.il. Final date for submission of articles: June 15, 2020. All scholarly articles will be subject to peer review. Academic Editor of Nashim: Renée Levine Melammed.

Nashim is published jointly by the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and Indiana University Press.