And Not a Word about the Goddess: On the Politics of Shaping and Displaying a Pagan Identity by...

And Not a Word About the Goddess: On the Politics of Shaping and Displaying a Pagan Identity by Israeli Pagan Women in Israeli Women’s Spirituality Festivals Shai Feraro Tel Aviv University

In this article I intend to analyze the processes by which Pagan identity is formed and expressed by Israeli Pagan women, when attending ‘Women’s Spirituality’ festivals and workshops in Israel. As such it will deal with the complexities of identifying oneself as a (Jewish-born) Pagan in Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people. By doing so it will also hopefully contribute to research on the politics of identity in Israeli New Religious Movements, and more generally – in Israeli society at large. The findings I will present here are part of a wider and ongoing study of the Israeli Pagan community, which is intended to be the first book-length research to focus on Contemporary Paganism in Israel.1 In this article I will claim that the unique connections between (Jewish) religion and the state in Israel, coupled with the country’s distinct Jewish character, create a situation in which – unlike their North American and Western European sisters – Israeli Pagan women generally find it difficult to express their Pagan identity when participating in Israeli Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops. This in turn contributes to a consolidation of a Pagan identity separate from the wider Israeli New Age scene.

Identity Politics The modern nation state, in which citizens are assumed to share a common national identity, language and culture, reinforces those premises through nation-building projects in education, public media, symbols etc. Ever since the 1960’s, scholars arguing for a ‘politics of difference’ have been claiming that “traditional majoritarian models of democracy and difference-blind models of national citizenship are inherently

1 So far, the subject had only been dealt with under the prism of M.A. theses. Here I must acknowledge Rinat Korvet’s (2008) pioneering M.A. research on Internet usage amongst Israeli Pagans, and Orly Salinas-Mizrahi’s (2010) graduate work on processes of identity formation and belief alteration amongst Israeli Wiccans. She is now conducting a PhD research on their rituals and life-cycle celebrations.

Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review Volume 5 Issue 1 2014

© 2014 Academic Publishing, Inc. For the entire issue, visit: www.academicpublishing.org

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exclusionary, marginalizing and disadvantaging a whole range of groups… and… minorities” (Bashir and Kymlicka 2008: 2). This has given rise to models of a more inclusive citizenship, including those of ‘multicultural’ democracy, which challenge the former model of nationhood in favor of a citizenship model which explicitly recognize and accommodate groups whose cultural differences have been excluded from the national imaginary.“ (Bashir and Kymlicka 2008: 2) some scholars prefer to use different terms in this context, such as ‘the politics of recognition’, ‘the politics of difference’, or ‘identity politics’ (Taylor 1994: 25-73).

In Israel, identity politics have usually centered on the relationship between the Jewish majority and Arab minority (Rouhana 2008). Samooha (2002) characterizes the Israeli political regime as an ‘Ethnic Democracy’, which “Combines the extension of civil and political rights for all permanent residents with an institutionalized ethnic ascendancy of the majority group” – namely Israeli Jews. Another important site of contention is the religious-secular divide, which has evolved since the late 1990’s into a struggle over the very nature of the Jewish state – a kind of “Politics of Jewish Identity” (Cohen and Susser 2000: 65). As Marianna Ruah Midbar and Adam Klin-Oron noted recently, “Israeli society is composed of traditional and conservative forces on the one hand, and progressive, secular and rational forces that crave globalization on the other.” Furthermore, “both of these forces are affected not only by religion… but also by a collective cultural consciousness of victimhood – the result of years of anti-Semitic persecutions culminating in the Holocaust.” This is especially true in matters relating to cultural isolation or openness (2010: 36). Struggles between conservative and progressive forces in Israel center around the unique and exclusive position given to Orthodox Judaism by the state. There are several unique characteristics to Israeli society which are derived, in part, from the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. Some of the ways in which this uniqueness is manifested is the lack of a constitution or a bill of rights; in public institutions being closed on the Jewish Sabbath; the total monopoly of Orthodox Judaism in all matters of official life (such as marriages and divorces, burial, funding for religious institutions and rabbis) through the Rabbinate of Israel, to the exclusion of other, more liberal forms of Judaism.2 Secular and non-Orthodox Jews perceive all of these as Religious coercion. This situation is made all the more complicated by the emergence of New Religious Movements and New Age forms of spirituality in Israel. 2 Chen and Susser (2000: 21-22, 115-116, 121-122). See also Wiess and Gross-Horowitz (2013) for a study on marriage and divorce in the Jewish state.



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Contemporary Paganism, New Age and Feminist Spirituality ‘Contemporary Paganism’ is an umbrella-term used for describing modern attempts in the Western world for reviving various ethnic and magical traditions, mainly those of the pre-Christian European world. As a relatively-new world religion, Contemporary Paganism actually draws heavily on a variety of much older sources of the Western Esoteric tradition, such as the Hermetic tradition of the European Renaissance; the Romantic movement in Nineteenth Century Britain; Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century groups such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and on the work of writers such as Aleister Crowley, Charles Godfrey Leland, Margaret Murray, Robert Graves, and Sir James Frazer (Hutton 1999). The Contemporary Pagan revival owes much of its existence to Gerald Gardner (1884-1964). A retired British civil servant, Gardner had embarked during the late 1940’s upon a quest for reviving what he described as the ancient religion of pagan witchcraft3. Following the 1951 repeal of the so-called Witchcraft Act of 1736, Gardner felt it was now safe for him to come forth with his religion of witchcraft. During the 1950’s, he authored two non-fiction books which publicized its existence (Gardner 2004 [1954]; Gardner 2004 [1959]). Wicca – as the religion came to be known – began attracting followers throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, evolving into the most widely known and influential of the denominations comprising Contemporary Paganism. In the meantime, several other Wiccan-oriented traditions of Witchcraft begun to emerge, such as Alexandrian Witchcraft and the Robert Cochrane-inspired 1734 tradition (Hutton 1999: 313-339). The 1970’s-1980’s ushered in the development of several other important strands within today’s contemporary Pagan movement, such as Druidry, Heathenry and the Northern Traditions, as well as other closely related ones, such as Goddess Feminism and Shamanism.

Contemporary Paganism is built as a large network of small, completely autonomous groups who make almost no real effort in proselytizing or owning congregational buildings (Salomonsen 2002: 8). The majority of Modern Pagans are not active in organized groups but work as solitaries, who may join with other Pagans only

3 Hutton (1999: 239). Gardner was a member of The Folk-Lore Society, and was experienced in various Western esoteric traditions, such as Spiritualism, Freemasonry, Co-Masonry, the Fellowship of Crotona, the OTO, the Ancient Druid Order, and the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. Much of Gardner’s narrative regarding his contact with a surviving coven of pagan witches has been either discredited or called into question by academic researchers such as Hutton (1999).



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occasionally; particularly at Pagan summer festivals.4 The movement‘s decentralized character causes any attempt at quantifying the phenomenon to involve a certain degree of speculation (Lewis 2007: 13). Most countries do not include the term ‘Pagan’ – or similar alternatives – as an option in their census forms. Moreover, some believers prefer not to identify themselves as Pagans in government censuses, for fear of religious persecution (Davy 2007: 3). Most Modern Pagans today reside within the United States5 and Great Britain6, while the rest are dispersed mostly throughout Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.7

Although this view has been challenged by both scholars of Pagan Studies and by practitioners (York 1995; Pearson 1998; Harrington 2007), Contemporary Pagan religions have often been equated with the wider New Age movement by scholars who pioneered the study of the New Age phenomenon, such as Wouter Hanegraaff (1996). New Age is not a New Religious Movement (NRM), nor is it a collection of NRMs (Heelas 1996: 9), “but more a cultural zeitgeist” (Chryssides 2007: 22). Its origins have been associated by various scholars with the Theosophical Movement of the late-Nineteenth Century, the Interwar Period, as well as with the Hippie 1960’s and the mid-1970’s, although it has also been continuously criticized as an analytic term. New Agers are characterized by their optimistic view of the self and its sacralization and ‘empowerment’. These are manifested in practices such as meditation, healing and alternative medicine. New Agers express an eclectic approach to spirituality, refusing to commit to one specific expression of it, and valuing intuition as well as the search for

4This according to Clifton, who adds that according to assessments made by Llewellyn – the largest American publisher of Pagan books – 70 percent of all self-described Pagans are solitaries. Margot Adler writes that during 1982-1996 the number of Pagan festivals doubled every 4.5 years, reaching 347 in 1995. The average number of people attending each festival had also doubled. (Clifton 2006: 11, 12. 164; Adler 2006 [1979]: 411-412). 5 Estimates put forth by scholars regarding the number of Pagan living in the US are extremely varied. In 1999, Jorgensen and Russell – who collected their data during 1996 – placed the Pagan population in the US at around 200,000. In scholarly books published at the turn of the twentieth century, Berger and Pike proposed similar numbers. James R. Lewis noted that the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), conducted in 2001, indicated a total Pagan population of 307,000. Chas Clifton, a Pagan academic scholar, proposed in 2006 a far greater estimate of an 800,000-strong Pagan presence in the US. (Jorgensen and Russell 1999: 325-338; Berger 1999; Pike 2001; Lewis 2004: 1-17; Clifton 2006: 11). 6 Ronald Hutton estimated them at about 107,000-140,000 at the end of the 1990’s. (1999: 400-401). While official Census data shows significantly lower figures for Pagans in Britain, a clear rise can be discerned: The 2001 United Kingdom census data pointed to 42,336 Pagan in England and Wales (excluding Scotland), while by 2011 Pagan numbers almost doubled to 79,216. 7The 2001 censuses in Canada, Australia and New Zealand accounted for 21,085, 23,460 and 5,862 Pagans respectively, and while academic estimates suggest that a few thousand more Pagans reside in each Western European country. (Lewis 2004: 8, 9-10; Rountree 2004: ix, 7).



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spiritual nourishment to what they conceive as the fixed, dogmatic answers of established religion (Chryssides 2007).

There exists a clear correspondence between Contemporary Paganism, the New Age Movement and the Feminist Spirituality Movement, which evolved in the United States during the 1970’s-1980’s.8 Like Contemporary Western Pagans, Spiritual Feminists call for restoring the connections between human beings, the natural world, and the Sacred Feminine. They can be divided into three overlapping and interacting groups (Greenwood 2005: 55; Raphael 1999). The first is a large core of women who define themselves as Pagan Witches/Wiccans, and act either in a coven or as solitaries (Coleman 2009; Rountree 2004; Salomonsen 2002; Wise 2008). The second group contains women who practice in ritual and study-groups that do not regard themselves as Wiccan or Pagan. Here I shall describe them as ‘Goddess Feminists’ (Eller 1993; Griffin 2005: 55-83; Klassen 2009; Lozano and Foltz 1990: 211-234). Most of them understand The Goddess as a liberating metaphor, or as a symbol of their own personal and political energies, while some do see Her as a real and independent force. The third group consists of Spiritual Feminists who keep their Jewish/Christian identity and try to bring about Feminist changes within the Judeo-Christian traditions (Plaskow 1991; Fiorenza c1983).

Women’s Spirituality and Paganism in Israel Israeli identity politics, as outlined above, contribute to the fact that most Israeli women who participate in women’s spirituality will strive to do so within a Jewish context. Only a very small minority would actually describe themselves as ‘Goddess Feminists’, and an even smaller amount would identify themselves as Pagans who engage in Feminist Witchcraft. As we would later see, this distribution of Israeli Women’s Spirituality is also reflected in the layout of relevant workshops and festivals.

Women’s Spirituality in Israel has yet to have been researched from a historical perspective. Its founding figure is Iris Yotvat.9 Yotvat lived in Los Angeles during the late 1980’s, and was exposed to Feminist Pagan Witchcraft and Goddess Feminism through reading Starhawk’s Spiral Dance and Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade.10 While in L.A., she got to know women who defined themselves as witches

8 See for example (Christ 1979: 273-287; Christ 1997; Goldenberg 1979; Spretnak 1982). For a critical view of Feminist Spirituality see Eller (2000). 9 The following is based on an interview I conducted with Ms. Yotvat. Her English website can be accessed here: http://www.irisyotvat.com/indexEng.aspx 10 Starhawk (1989 [1979]); Eisler (1987). Yotvat would later serve as the driving force behind the The Chalice’s 2002 translation into Hebrew.



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(though not as Pagans). Though she began to see herself as a witch11 as well, her primary interests lay in pregnancy and natural birth, combined with tantra. In 1990, she came back to Israel and a year later she co-founded the Derech Em [MotherWise] center for natural birth. She also began to collaborate with Goddess-oriented women such as Nona Lila Megged and Aimee Ginsburg.12 According to Yotvat, the three women believed that by their actions they were rediscovering the Goddess. Yotvat, Megged and another woman – Avital Bar’am (née Weiss) – developed the first Israeli women circles throughout the 1990’s. Their ‘Mother Earth’ courses taught women about the elements, the Goddess, the solstices and about working in a circle. By the end of the decade more and more circles were being formed, which led to the country’s first Women’s Spirituality gatherings and festivals (which will be discussed below), and prompted Yotvat to develop courses for circle-moderators. The courses and circles run by Yotvat and Megged included information on Wiccan and Pagan principles, among others, but was not presented as part of these religions, in order to attract as many Israeli women as possible.

Alongside Women’s Spirituality, a small Pagan community has developed in Israel. Paganism in Israel is a relatively new phenomenon. Interviews with veteran Israeli Pagans suggest that up until the late 1990’s there were only a handful of Pagans living in Israel, isolated and unaware of each other’s existence. The spread of internet usage in Israeli society changed this particular situation, and in 1998 ‘Israwicca’, a Pagan discussion list, was launched.13 The new millennium saw the creation of various Internet websites and discussion forums, the primary one being the “Paganism in Israel” forum (housed on Tapuz website), which surfaced during 2001. This forum served as a focal point for Pagan internet activity in Israel for a whole decade and closed down when activity in it dwindled due to the creation of a Facebook group, also named “Paganism in Israel”.14 Throughout the first decade or so of its existence the Israeli Pagan community

11 Yotvat actually disdained using the Hebrew word for ‘witch’, Mehashefa, due to its negative connotations in the Bible and the Hebrew language, and identified with the verb Mehashefet, which could mean ‘enchantress’. 12 According to Yotvat, Ginsburg was by then a Goddess worshiper and a witch – a fact she disclosed only with her intimate circle of friends. 13 The list still exists today, though by 2012 activity has shrunk to an average of 2 messages per month. See: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/israwicca/. For a study on the importance of internet usage in Contemporary Paganism, see Cowan (2005). 14 The forum’s archive (In Hebrew) is still accessible on http://www.tapuz.co.il/forums2008/forumpage. aspx?forumid=337. The archives of a smaller, less successful forum (housed on the ‘Walla forums’ website) were recently pulled offline. This forum was active mostly between the years 2002-2004. While Korvet’s exploratory research included content analysis on six random weeks of Tapuz forum activity between



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experienced what can best be described as ‘waves’ of creation, when social gatherings and semi-public rituals multiplied. These were then followed by periods of reduced communal activity, as the organizers of such events reached burnout. An analysis of the interviews conducted and mainly of the vast Tapuz forum archive suggests that community activities flourished throughout the years 1999-2000, 2002-2003, and between 2005 and early 2006. The current wave of communal activity commenced sometime around mid-2009. The 2009 Beltane ritual ushered an almost unbroken succession of semi-public rituals, social meet-ups, two successive summer festivals, and the founding of an Israeli branch of the Pagan Federation International (PFI).15

Women make up two thirds of the overall number of Israeli Pagans.16 My research into the Israeli Pagan community included thirty in-depth interviews with Israeli Pagan women which were carried out during 2011 and 2012. Comments raised by some of the women I interviewed led me to examine the ways in which Israeli Pagan women – being able to move between the congruent (yet different) circles of Contemporary Paganism and Women’s Spirituality – shape and express their Pagan identity when participating in Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops in Israel. Seemingly, both movements’ joint emphasis of female aspects of the divine and feminist values should not produce a contradiction between the theology and values expressed during the festivals and workshops, and the Pagan identity of some participants. Research on both Feminist Spirituality and Contemporary Paganism in the US did not depict such contradictions.17 In this article I intend to argue that the unique connections between religion and the state in Israel, coupled with the country’s distinct Jewish nature, hinder Israeli Pagan women from freely expressing their Pagan identity when participating in the wider Women’s Spirituality ‘scene’ in Israel. This in turn contributes to the crystallization of an Israeli Pagan identity separate from the Israeli New Age.

2001-2006 (Korvet 2008: 40), my research includes the entire Tapuz and Walla forums (amongst others) from their inception to their eventual shutdown. 15 See Feraro (Forthcoming) for a detailed description of the development of Modern Paganism in Israel.

16 The data is derived from an academic survey I conducted together with Orly Salinas Mizrahi. It is based largely on Helen Berger’s recent follow-up of her ‘Pagan Census’. Some of the results of Berger’s survey can be seen in Berger (2012: 3-16). 17 See for instance Cynthia Eller’s (1993) study on Feminist Spirituality festivals in the US.



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Israeli Pagan women experiences in the Local Women’s Spirituality ‘Scene’ As a male researcher, I could not perform a participant-observant study of these venues, which are held in ‘women-only’ spaces.18 Another hindrance to my work was the fact that Israeli Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops have not yet received academic treatment by female researchers. The claims I make here are based almost exclusively on the interviews I conducted with Israeli Pagan women, who shared with me their personal experiences from the Shakti festival (held yearly since 2002) and other Women’s Spirituality workshops in Israel.19 This research is therefore exploratory in its nature, and will hopefully serve as a call for female Israeli academics and graduate students from various disciplines (such as Anthropology, Religion and Gender Studies, etc.) to conduct their own participant-observant research in order to consolidate Israeli Women’s Spirituality as a research field.

It will actually be interesting to start this analysis with presenting the expectations maintained by Israeli Pagan women when they arrived at the Shakti festival. When asked if she expected to express her Pagan identity freely at the festival, Sharon20, an elder in the Israeli Pagan community, presented an answer which was rather characteristic of my other interviewees:

“Yes. I think that there was a naïve expectation of that sort. And in some way it felt at the same time legitimate but also subversive. I mean, that it is possible here, unlike in other places, but it is obviously subversive.” -Interview with Sharon.

That same ‘naïve expectation’ was also expressed by Eline, a young Pagan in her early twenties. When I interviewed her, Eline had yet to take part in any Women’s Spirituality activities, but hoped to participate in the forthcoming Shakti festival for the first time. She pictured the festival as a place where Paganism was actually the common faith, and where each woman could work with her Goddesses of choice. In her view, this would be reflected in the festival’s workshops and discussions. Interestingly, Eline thought that it would be less likely for women who practice Women’s Spirituality from a Jewish angle to arrive at the festival: 18 For a critical view on male researchers’ ability to engage in studies of theology and women’s spirituality in general, see Reid-Bowen (2005: 190-200); Arrandale (2002: 16-26). 19 Out of a total of thirty interviews, thirteen women shared their experiences of participating in Women’s Spirituality activities. 20 I have used aliases throughout this article when referring to Israeli Pagan Women.



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“If someone who decides to work with the Shekinah will come here she will be welcomed. I… I do not know how much that’s… I do not think that a woman who works with the Shekinah will come to that festival to begin with… She believes in God, Elokim, the biblical God, [so she] won’t go there to begin with.” -Interview with Eline.

Participation in Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops is considered by Israeli Pagan women generally as a climactic experience of being in a sacred all-female space, but at the same time they experience different feelings, of otherness, as well. As we shall see below, this in turn can paradoxically cause their segregation from the other, Jewish-oriented women in that sacred space, and strengthen their Pagan identity. We will now focus on three main arenas in which such encounters happen: the Nashima rituals; the Shakti festival; and the workshops of the School of Rituals.

The first Nashima ritual, which took place on December 21st 1999, can be said to represent the crystallization of the Israeli Women’s Spirituality movement, which had been developing throughout the 1990’s. The event organizers – Iris Yotvat, Nona Lila Megged, Shira Luria, Yuval Rose, Michal Emdin and Ella Goldreich – reported later that a thousand women attended that first gathering, which served as a precursor to the larger, more institutionalized Shakti festival. Noga, an Israeli Pagan in her fifties, was among the women who participated in the gathering. She described the atmosphere as truly amazing, and noted that songs were sung about the Goddess and her place in each and every woman, etc. In her perception, the event was “Totally Pagan”. Her statement can be backed by Iris Yotvat’s recollection of the event:

“We prepared a ceremony which had all the elements and included all the songs we were already singing. I wrote a lot of songs, all these Pagan songs. I also translated many Reclaiming21 songs… for all the workshops we did.” -Interview with Iris Yotvat.

On her way home, though, Noga shared her observation with other – non-Pagan – women who attended the gathering, and told them “Wow!! A thousand women singing

21 The Reclaiming tradition was developed by the Feminist Witch, Starhawk. It is deeply affected by radical feminism and carries within it distinct elements of political and social activism. For a detailed study on Reclaiming Witches, see Salomonsen (2002).



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about the Goddess, on how we are [one] with the Goddess and She with[in] us”. According to Noga, the women did not understand her remark, and did not perceive the gathering’s purpose as connecting and working with ‘The Goddess’. The second Nashima ritual, which took place during December 2000, featured a similar incident, according to Noga. She participated in the gathering together with a group of Shamanic women she befriended. The woman who led this group participated occasionally in the rituals of Noga’s Pagan group, and even read books by Starhawk – a popular Pagan author. Yet when Noga referred to the gathering’s atmosphere as a “wild Pagan scene”, the Shamanic women reacted by saying: “No. Wait a minute. We are Shamanic and Shamanism in this country is not Pagan. So it is not a religion.” Their reaction left Noga stunned.

The information gathered from my interviewees suggests that while the concept of ‘Goddess’ was directly invoked during the two successive Nashima rituals, it was replaced by a mellower reference to ‘Women’s Spirituality’ by the time of the Shakti festivals. At this point I wish to restate the fact that participant-observant researches of Shakti have yet to be carried out, limiting our ability to augment these claims with more comprehensive data. I would however care to suggest two possible reasons for this ‘dilution’ of the discourse from one of ‘Goddess’ to that of a broader ‘Women’s Spirituality’, as it was understood by the Israeli Pagan women I have interviewed. The first possible reason has to do with a change of personnel in the driving force behind the production of these events. The Nashima organizers, who put a relative emphasis on the ‘Goddess’ concept, had reached burnout, and the women who took the initiative after them did not relate to the same feminist undertones and to the concept of ‘Goddess’. Secondly, studies on other large New Age festivals in Israel have shown that festival organizers often face a dilemma between their desire to express and adhere to New Age values and ideas in the festival, and their aim to increase the numbers of (paying) participants. This is done by ‘diluting’ the festival’s content and thereby adjusting it to a wider Israeli (and Jewish) audience. (Simchai 2009:152-153, 160-161) It would appear that the Shakti festival did not escape this same framework. Indeed, as Marianna Ruah-Midbar and Adam Klin Oron have noted recently, “Upon its arrival in Israel, the New Age encounters a local characteristic substantially different from those prevalent in other European societies, which are Christian in origin”. Even though most New Agers in Israel are secular, and object to the binding nature of the Halacha (Jewish Law), “they do maintain some form of Jewish Praxis…” (Ruah-Midbar and Klin Oron 2010: 38). Thus, while most Israeli New Agers maintain indifference to the actual application of Halacha to their spirituality (with others maintaining opposition, adaptation or preservation [Ruah-Midbar and Klin Oron 2010: 53, 54]), the frame of reference is dictated by the



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reality of Israel as a Jewish state. Indeed, “…Israelis join the Global New Age discourse through use of symbols and practices they are familiar with, including the Halacha” (Ruah-Midbar and Klin Oron 2010: 61 n. 18), performing what could be termed ‘Jew Age’22.

Unaware of these academic insights, of course, Israeli Pagan women hoped to find in Shakti a warm and supportive environment in which they could openly express their Pagan identity and the place and meaning of the Goddess in their lives. The next incident – which was recounted separately by most interviewees – will illustrate what happens in their minds as this conception is put to the test during the festival itself: a “Kabbalat Shabbat” ceremony for the welcoming of the Jewish Sabbath takes place during Friday evening, on the second day of the Shakti festival. All festival goers participate in the ceremony, which is led by the ‘Shakti Choir’ – composed of the festival’s workshop moderators. The choir sings the Sabbath songs using male anthropomorphic imagery for describing the divine. The reaction of Carmel, a Pagan in her early-thirties, was reflective of the other women I have interviewed:

“They were singing… using a male noun23, and it’s Shakti, it’s a Women’s festival. It was… ridiculous…, this lack of awareness which [says] ‘let’s sing Sabbath prayers’, when in fact these are prayers recited by men, using male nouns of course, which have to do with a male God, to do with men… both in content and in language… I saw it and just left the ceremony, because I said to myself ‘this… does not sit well with me… I cannot see women singing songs which glorify patriarchy during a ritual… during a festival of women’s empowerment’. It… it was simply paradoxical... I could not stay there. So we left [the ritual space], and then we realized that we [the Pagan women] all left, so we went to do something [i.e. a ritual] for the Goddess. So it did cause a [kind of] separatism, of us Pagans. Which I think was not so good for…us, because the other women saw us as ‘those Pagan [women]’.” -Interview with Carmel.

In her study of Neopagan summer festivals, Sarah Pike asserts that Modern Pagans’ experience of marginality Vis-à-vis mainstream society contributes to their sense of 22 This term was introduced recently by Ruah-Midbar and Klin Oron (2010). See also (Ruah-Midbar 2012). 23 Hebrew uses grammatical gender as a system of noun classification, meaning that every noun must pertain to one gender category.



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belonging to a community within the liminal space of the festival. She claims that “the [very] separateness of festivals allows for a community-wide recognition and a communal self-affirmation of Neopagan marginality and its historical roots”. (2001: 31) It is clear that during the Shakti festival, Israeli Pagan women experience a sort of ‘double marginality’, whereby the feeling of marginality as within mainstream society is coupled with a sense of marginality within the festival itself. This in turn contributes to the reinforcement of a Pagan identity separate from the generic ‘Jew Age’ identity of other festival goers.

The last arena I wish to examine here is the workshops of the ‘School of Rituals’24. Interestingly enough, one of its organizers also coordinates content, ritual and public relations for the Shakti festival. The workshops I refer to here were moderated by American women based in Boulder, Colorado, who teach their interfaith vision of The Path of Ceremonial Arts (PCA)25 to women around the world.

One of these workshops, which centered around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its effects on women, drew to it Jewish, Muslim and Christian women, together with 5 Israeli Pagan women26. Carmel described the anticipation and excitement she and her fellow Pagan friends felt as they drove together to the four-day workshop, which was held in the south of Israel:

“We were all very excited because here came [these] priestesses [from overseas], which we understood to be Pagan priestesses. And nine priestesses did arrive, most of them Pagan. And the contents of what they taught were very familiar to us as Pagans.”

I asked Carmel how she knew that some of those priestesses were actually Pagan, and she explained that some of them had Pentagram pendants, which are Pagan symbols. She also talked with some of them during the recesses. Carmel continued her description of the workshop:

“…the idea was really an interfaith meeting, between Jewish… and Christian and Muslim women. And because it was an interfaith meeting, we decided to… say that there are not only Jewish women [here] – there are also Pagan women. And it was obvious that nobody [both the Israeli

24 Their Hebrew website can be accessed here: http://tkasimschool.weebly.com. 25See: http://www.pathoftheceremonialarts.org. 26 It is important to state that the five Pagan women grew up in a Jewish context, as are virtually all Pagans in Israel, and at first glance would have been identified as secular Israeli Jews by the other participants.



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organizers and participants] expected this, and that… it was… a bit awkward, that when they said ‘here we are [together], Jewish, Christian and Muslim women’ and we would add ‘and Pagan…’. It was like… they had difficulty with that, [and] they also did not understand what Pagan meant. Only… afterwards, since we continued coming to these workshops, then they had no choice but to understand that... [laughingly] there are Pagan women [in these workshops] and they are here to stay.”

I have asked Carmel what kind of responses she and her Pagan friends received from the Jewish women who participated in the workshop. According to her, the organizers, who knew the Colorado priestesses and could have recognized the Pagan elements of the contents as well (this although they themselves did not identify with the concept of Paganism) tried to transmit acceptance and to show their openness to the subject. The reaction from the regular participants was different, though:

“I got many reactions which… tried to dissuade… [and] to explain to me that I was actually not Pagan: from ‘I understand your way, but why do you have to use the word Goddess?’, to someone else who said ‘whatever you say, you are Jewish, and you will always be Jewish’ and ‘why do you delude yourself? You will always stay Jewish’.” “The effect on me was that I felt… as if I had to fight for my place.”

“My identity as a Pagan solidified because I actually needed to stand my ground.” -Interview With Carmel.

The social scientist interested in the intersection of identities and diversity within groups in general, and within nations in particular, might find these comments interesting. The hardships of identifying oneself as a Pagan in a Jewish State, as well as the apparent dissonance between Pagan and Jewish-Israeli identities, has been noted elsewhere (Feraro forthcoming; Salinas-Mizrahi 2010: 21, 28, 30, 37). Indeed, as Bhikhu Parekh noted recently, “National identity is highly complex, multilayered, composed of different and sometimes conflicting strands of thought..., values and ideas”. (2008: 61) In Israeli society, Jewish identity is considered to be a privileged one. As noted earlier, most Israeli Pagans conceal their spiritual beliefs in varying degrees and virtually all of them come from a Jewish background. This means that as long as they remain hidden in the broom



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closet, they continue to enjoy the privileges conferred upon Israeli-Jews by the state and by mainstream society. When choosing to express their Pagan identity freely, Israeli Pagans run the risk of replacing these privileges with external negative reactions and internal feelings of guilt.27 Discussion Bhikhu Parekh recently noted “every society is a more or less well-articulated system of identities, each subject to certain norms, carrying certain privileges or privations, and enforced by formal and informal sanctions.” As social identities are sources of order, predictability and freedom (as well as lack thereof), “Society seeks to ensure that its members not only conform to but [also] internalize their social identities.” (2008: 16-17) Some identities are therefore recognized as legitimate and respected, while others are recognized as illegitimate, marginalized or inferiorized. In these situations contention thus usually arises. (2008: 17) With this article I tried to understand what happens when Israeli women of Jewish descent choose to shed this privilege-laden identity in favor of one which is seen as inferior (if not illegitimate) in the eyes of both mainstream Israeli society and (seemingly) women attending Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops in Israel.

To conclude, the experiences I have shown above suggest that Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops do indeed attract Israeli Pagan women, who view them as an opportunity for experiencing a sacred female space as well as a chance to learn from overseas teachers whom they consider to be Pagan, like them.28 Yet at the festival and the workshop, these women find that their Pagan identity can to a degree create a barrier between them and the other (Jewish-oriented) participants:

27 One possible reason for the negative sentiments that are often expressed towards Israeli Pagans of Jewish descent is the collective cultural consciousness of victimhood which was mentioned earlier and the centrality of the Holocaust in Zionist discourse. Jews who convert to other religions are considered to be betraying the memory of millions of Jews who were put to death because of their religion. Another possible reason is that from an early age every Israeli Jew is exposed throughout his or her school years to Bible lessons (as part of an approved Ministry of Education program) which feature the extermination of pagan Canaanites by the Hebrew tribes as a positive and beneficial act, riding the land from idolaters and securing a Jewish homeland delivered by divine right (Sand 2012:74). 28 Although some of these overseas teachers might not identify themselves as Pagans, they do see themselves as Goddess Women, etc. As I have already mentioned, the lines between these definitions can sometimes be blurry.



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“Pagan women stuck to themselves many times, because… our language for discussing women’s empowerment is a Pagan language. So [when] sharing my impressions of what is being taught, say the workshops’ contents for example – these were Pagan contents, so wasmy language for… sharing [them]… I could only do that with the Pagan women, because I could not say to the normal Israelis ‘well, we cast the circle differently, and… we called on the Goddess using this way and that way…”. -Interview with Carmel.

It would appear that the reactions Israeli Pagan women received from Jewish participants during the festivals and workshops, which sought to ‘dissolve’ their separate Pagan identity and to prove to them that ‘whatever may be – you will always be Jewish’, actually brought about a reversed outcome: a sense of separateness and a threat to their Pagan identity, which in turn strengthened the latter. It is not surprising, then, that Israeli Pagans have recently launched their own community festival, centered around the Pagan holiday of Mabon29 and held yearly during late September.30 One of the workshops which took place during the 2nd Mabon festival centered around ‘Pagan pride in a Jewish state’. One of the workshop’s participants, whom I’ll refer to here as Asherah, raised an interesting argument: she noted that in Israel, one can be recognized as either religious, secular or spiritual (meaning generic New-Age with Judaic overtones, or ‘Jew-Age’), yet there is no room for her to describe herself as religious and at the same time not Jewish. Ergo, an Israeli Pagan of Jewish descent that takes her religion seriously and asserts her now non-Jewish religious identity simply has no place in Israeli society’s religious discourse. Another Israeli Pagan woman remarked during an interview that

“When one talks… even concerning spirituality [in Israel, then Judaism] is what comes to mind. It comes to mind because it’s what you know. Other possibilities just do not come up, and if they do, they meet a sort of… rejection. People don’t usually search for… it’s too much a part of people’s identity [in Israel]. And to say goodbye to that identity is too big of a request for people in this country. It hurts their… what will remain of [their] ethnicity, of [their] nationalism?” -Interview with Sharon.

29 Part of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, Mabon, the Autumn Equinox, is celebrated during late September. An academic analysis of the shaping of Modern Pagan seasonal festivals can be found in Hutton (2008). 30 For a study on the importance of Pagan summer festivals to Pagan community-building in the U.S., see Pike (2001). See also Cornish (2005: 47-48, 195).



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This echos Marianna Ruah-Midbar and Adam Klin Oron’s argument on the adaptation of Global New Age discourse into an Israeli ‘Jew Age’ one through use of Jewish symbols and practices, which I presented above. Furthermore, as Parekh tells us, Groups involved in the politics of collective identity demand not only equal civil and political rights, “but also equal respect and public legitimacy or ‘recognition’ for their marginalized identities.” (2008: 31) Indeed “recognition is the heart of the matter”, as noted almost twenty years ago by Craig Calhoun (1994: 20). It might not serve as a surprise to learn that the fight against what Israeli Pagan women perceived as attempts to erase their Pagan identity, which in turn causes its reinforcement, has manifested itself in another way as well: a feeling that the values and traditions of Goddess Feminism and Contemporary Paganism undergo a kind of cultural rape by moderators of Women’s Spirituality workshops and circles in Israel. When referring to Israeli Women’s Spirituality workshop moderators, Carmel complained:

“You teach materials which are derived… Their source is within the Goddess movement, and you don’t address them as such. And this way if I will organize [a workshop] for Israeli women and cast the circle, call the quarters etc., and will refer to it as a Pagan tradition, they will say ‘what are you talking about? We do that in ‘women’s circles’ [which has actually been stripped of their Pagan and Goddess context]”. “Meaning, because of them the materials with which I’m working – the rituals and the sanctity of the earth, the empowerment, and all the things which are part of my Pagan religion – are actually familiar to Israeli New Age women from women’s circles and all sorts of workshops that they don’t know how to name [exactly], because it is forbidden to name them [i.e. to use talk of Goddess or Paganism]. These are familiar materials, and yet I cannot say ‘I’m Pagan’. …It feels as if they steal who I am… taking from me everything I am and denying my space”. -Interview with Carmel.

Similar remarks were made by Dinah, a middle-aged Israeli Pagan:



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“…The School of Rituals [staff] learned and teach rituals which are literally taken from the Wiccan-Pagan tradition, totally, without honoring it, without mentioning it… I don’t know, it looks likes cultural imperialism to me…” -Interview with Dinah

This issue connects with another, closely related one: the relations between Pagan women and Goddess Feminists in Israel. It would have been safe to assume that this unique Israeli Women’s Spirituality ‘scene’, dominated by ‘Jew Age’ sentiments, would create a climate in which Israeli Goddess women might have a better rapport with Israeli Pagan Witches than with women active in the country’s wider, Jewish-oriented, Women’s Spirituality ‘milieu’. The materials presented in this article show that this is not the case. Although the founding figures of the Israeli Women’s Spirituality ‘scene’ were and are Goddess-identified, Israeli identity politics forced them to present their message in a more, albeit feminist, ‘Jew Age’ tone in order to attract Israeli women to their cause. It seems that the unwillingness of Israeli Feminist Witches to conceal concepts such as ‘Paganism’ and ‘Goddess’ from their repertoire when presenting their identity encouraged a process in which the two groups drifted apart. This resulted in the fact that Israeli women who inwardly identify themselves as ‘Goddess-Women’ are aligning themselves more closely with the wider Israeli Women’s Spirituality ‘scene’ than with Israeli Pagan women.

It is important to note that the voices I have presented thus far, while dominant, are certainly not the only ones. At times, two Israeli Pagan women who participated in the same workshop experienced it in two opposite ways. An example can be found in a workshop which took place in one of the Shakti annual festivals, and was moderated by an American-Indian called White Eagle. Carmel chose to emphasize during her recollections how much it bothered her that every time White Eagle said the word ‘Goddess’ (in English, of course), the translator assigned to her workshop by the festival organizers used the Hebrew word ‘Shekinah’ – supposedly in order to make White Eagle’s message more palatable for her Jewish listeners.31 One the other hand, another Israeli Pagan, Zohar, attended the workshop as well but did not mention this story at all.

The same goes for the workshops of the School of Rituals that were discussed earlier. While Carmel’s views did represent the majority of the women I have interviewed, not all reported a similar experience. When I asked Moran if the contents of the workshop conflicted in some way with her Pagan identity, she answered:

31 Similar remarks were made by Dinah regarding the School of Rituals workshops.



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“No. Every woman probably translated it using her own terms – I translated it into Paganism, she translated it into Indian symbols, others into Channeling, each woman into her own path.” -Interview with Moran.

An Israeli Pagan named Noa reported a different experience than that of Carmel and her friends as well:

“The Colorado priestesses came and teach rituals to Jewish, Christian and Muslim women, and I saw that it was indeed Pagan… and they [referring to Carmel, Sharon and their friends] kept complaining all the time, saying ‘what?.. they took this from here [meaning from the Goddess movement and Paganism], etc.’. A sort of bitterness was rife in that company… and… I did not relate [to that]. And someone… a traditional Jewish woman, said that she was doing a ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’ ceremony, and asked who wants to participate – nothing central [to the workshop itself]. Just any one who was interested could join. So Sharon decided that she will do a Pagan ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’… and I felt like ‘what the hell is a Pagan ‘Kabbalat Shabbat’?’ At the end I bailed and told them I won’t take part in it.” -Interview with Noa.

I would like to propose tentatively that there are two factors which produce these differences: the first, and main one, is the particular Pagan tradition each woman identifies with. It would appear that Pagan women who draw their inspiration mainly from the Reclaiming tradition – which is deeply affected by radical feminism and carries within it a distinct element of political and social activism – are more likely to feel excluded during Israeli Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops. This is actually ironic since this spiritual tradition actually serves as an important link between Pagans and Goddess Feminists overseas, and in Israel as well. Indeed, Rena Kessem, a Reclaiming Witch who is highly influential within the Israeli Pagan community32, owed 32 Kessem published the first (and so far only) Pagan book to be written in Hebrew by an Israeli Pagan, titled Derech Hakesem (The Path of Magic). In addition to founding a Reclaiming-oriented coven (now lapsed), Kessem developed her own Reclaiming-oriented Witchcraft courses. Eight of these were held between the years 2002-2008, attracting approximately 60 people altogether. Two additional courses which were carried out by other members of Kessem’s coven took place during 2010-2011. Although not all of the participants in these courses would describe themselves as following the Reclaiming tradition, it is fair to say that a large percentage of Israeli Pagans were exposed to it through Kessem’s book and courses.



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her first exposure to Paganism to Iris Yotvat and Nona Lila Megged. The latter loaned Starhawk’s books to Kessem, who participated in one of their ‘Mother Earth’ courses in 1996. Furthermore, Yotvat actually organized (with the help of Prof. Jenny Kien) Starhawk’s two visits to Israel during the 1990’s, in which terms such as Goddess and Witchcraft were not diluted and were discussed freely.33

A secondary factor is one’s Pagan seniority at the time of participation in the festival. Women who define themselves as Pagan for a longer period of time before the festival or workshop have a higher proclivity to feel that their identity as Pagans is threatened and marginalized. Another possible factor is the degree of an Israeli Pagan woman’s connection with the Women’s Spirituality subculture prior to the development of her Pagan identity. Israeli women who came into Paganism through a long preexisting involvement in Women’s Spirituality, experience the conflict between these identities at a lower rate.

In summation, with this article I claimed that the unique connections between (Jewish) religion and the state in Israel, coupled with the country’s distinct Jewish character, create a situation in which, unlike their North American and Western European sisters, Israeli Pagan women generally find it difficult to express their Pagan identity when participating in Israeli Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops. This in turn contributes to a consolidation of a Pagan identity separate from the wider Israeli New Age scene. As mentioned above, these findings are exploratory in their nature. More research, particularly by female researchers working from a participant-observer stance, is needed in order to shed some more light on the claims raised here, as well as on Israeli Women’s Spirituality festivals and workshops as a whole.

33 This according to an interview I conducted with Prof. Kien. Starhawk’s first visit took place during the 1996 Israeli Passover vacation. She held small workshops in several locations throughout the country (including Iris Yotvat’s Derech Em Tel Aviv center) on the Goddess and her resurrection in Israel, on creating rituals and on Goddess myths. For more information on Starhawk’s 1996 visit see Gal (1996: 82-86).



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