Semitic Neopaganism

The Hamsa is a symbol of Semitic Paganism

Part of the series on Contemporary Paganism Religions Baltic • Celtic • Chuvash Egyptian • Estonian • Finnish Germanic • Hellenic • Italic Mari • Sami • Semitic Slavic • Stregheria • Wicca Concepts Ethnic religion • Nature religion Paganism • Polytheism Henotheism • Animism Pantheism • Panentheism Approaches Reconstruction • Syncretism Neotribalism • Neoshamanism Technopaganism Related movements Contemporary Witchcraft Thelema • Tengrianism

Semitic Neopaganism (also Canaanite Neopaganism, Hebrew Neopaganism, Jewish Neopaganism, Judeo-Paganism) is the revival, mostly US based, of religious traditions deriving from Ancient Semitic religion. In practice, there are a number of minor Neopagan movements that revive Iron Age Canaanite religion.

The polytheistic mainstream religious practice in Canaan, and especially in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the 10th to 7th centuries BCE, is evident from the writings of the biblical prophets (even though these texts are written from the point of view of the Yahwist faction). The notion of historical Israelite or Jewish polytheism has been popularized in the 1960s by Raphael Patai in The Hebrew Goddess, focusing on the cult of female goddesses such as the cult of Asherah in the Temple of Solomon.

During the 1970s growth of Neopaganism in the United States, a number of minor Canaanite or Israelite oriented groups emerged, mostly containing syncretistic elements from western occultism. Thus, Ordo Templi Astartes (OTA) merged Hermetic elements taken from rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with Phoenician and Canaanite and Israelite themes.

Jewish Neopaganism specifically remains associated with Jewish feminism, focusing on the goddess cults of the Israelites.

Since the early 1990s to early 2000s, some Canaanite Neopagan groups have formed online.^{citation needed}

The most notable group today is known as Am Ha Aretz (עם הארץ, lit. "People of the Land", a rabbinical term for uneducated and religiously unobservant Jews), "Amha" for short. This group grew out of Ohavei Falcha, "Lovers of the Soil", a movement founded in the late 19th century.

Elie Sheva, according to her own testimony an "elected leader of AMHA" reportedly founded a US branch of the group, known as "Primitive Hebrew Assembly".

Jewish Wicca, and Semitic Neopaganism

Beit Asherah "the house of the Goddess Asherah", was one of the first Neopagan synagogues, founded in the early 1990s by Stephanie Fox, Steven Posch, and Magenta Griffiths (Lady Magenta). Magenta Griffiths is High Priestess of the Beit Asherah coven, and a former board member of the Covenant of the Goddess.

See also

• Canaanism
• Elohim
• Jewish Buddhist
• Kemetism
• Polytheistic reconstructionism

Further reading

• Engelberg, Keren (October 30, 2003). "When Witches Blend Torah and Tarot" reprinted in The Jewish Journal (July 21, 2008)
• Hunter, Jennifer (July 1, 2006). Magickal Judaism: Connecting Pagan & Jewish Practice. Citadel. ISBN 0-8065-2576-2, ISBN 978-0-8065-2576-1.
• Jacobs, Jill Suzanne. "Nice Jewitch Girls Leave Their Brooms in the Closet" in The Forward, Oct 31, 2003
• Michaelson, Jay (Decembdr 0, 2005). "Jewish Paganism: Oxymoron or Innovation?" in The Jewish Daily Forward.
• Raphael, Melissa (April 1998). "Goddess Religion, Postmodern Jewish Feminism, and the Complexity of Alternative Religious Identities". ‌Nova Religio, Vol. 1, No. 2, Pages 198–215 (abstract can be found at: Caliber: University of California Press)
• Various authors. "Jewish Paganism" in Green Egg, Winter 1994 (Volume 27, #107).
• Winkler, Rabbi Gershon (January 10, 2003). Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism. North Atlantic Books. ISBN 1-55643-444-8, ISBN 978-1-55643-444-0.

External links

• Primitive Hebrew Assembly
• Jewitchery.com
• Tel Shemesh
• Peeling a Pomegranate
• Am Ha Aretz USA
• Qadash Kinahnu