The Shaman and the Jew The enduring struggle for ethnic, cultural, national, and individual survival characterizes human history.These are powerful forces that drive events, underlie deep psychological motivations, and when challenged, are uncompromising. While sadly foreseeing the impending cataclysmic termination to Moorish Muslim Spain by the Christian armies, the Sultan of Granada and his esteemed Jewish physician, Juan Diego Camerino de Valencia are in a rare private dialogue. It is 1492 and their empathic exchange is most remarkable. The Sultan knows he could never become a wanderer like the Jews and will heroically die in the final attack, while Doctor Diego, realizing there will be no future for Jews in Spain, bemoans the loss, once again, of a homeland for his family. His only son Antonio, with a name change to Christian, is sent to Cuba in the New World. The struggle for survival has also characterized the lives of a small native American tribe, the Karankawa. Their hold on a bit of relatively barren land in southern Texas is under constant stress. Initially the dominant Apaches were threatening, only to have pressures increased by proselytizing Catholic priests moving up from Mexico, and finally by European settlers pushing ever westward. The arrival of Christian, the son of Doctor Diego, changes the dynamic of events. Barely surviving a shipwreck, his unconscious body is found on the shore by the Karankawa, who kindly nurse him back to health, with the essential blessings of the Shaman. The friendship that soon develops between the Shaman and Antonio (who restores his name and identity as a Jew) impacts succeeding events. Though their bonding is strong and authentic, the Shaman harbors suspicians that Antonio is a messenger of God, whose powers will benefit the people. Antonio is committed to a new life, finally succumbing to the urging of the Shaman to marry his daughter. From this harmonious pair, new generations of leadership emerge who are able to remarkably preserve the Jewish traditions within a welcoming Karankawa embrace. It is a rare amalgamation of the Karankawa traditional beliefs and the awesome prophetic Jewish faith. The encounter of an anthropologist—of Apache descent—with Wapasha—the custodial Shaman of the Karankawa—highlights the unyielding tenacity of ancient cultures on the human sense of identity.

Theory of shamanism, trance, and modern Kabbalah -- The shamanic process: descent and fiery transformations -- Empowerment through trance -- Shamanic Hasidism -- Hasidic trance -- Trance and the nomian.

A spiritual crisis sent Orthodox rabbi Gershon Winkler to remote regions of the Southwest, where he studied with Native American healers. From them he began to recover the long-lost wisdom of what he calls “Aboriginal Judaism”: the religion’s tribal roots. This book tracks his personal journey and draws from a dazzling mix of sources to detail the surprising connections between two seemingly unrelated religions.

In the year 1492, the Inquisition has all of Spain in its grip. After centuries of pogrom-like riots encouraged by the Church, the Jews - who have been an important part of Spanish life since the days of the Romans - are expelled from the country by royal edict. Many who wish to remain are intimidated by Church and Crown and become Catholics, but several hundred thousand choose to retain their religion and depart; given little time to flee, some perish even before they can escape from Spain. Yonah Toledano, the 15-year-old son of a celebrated Spanish silversmith, has seen his father and brother die during these terrible days - victims whose murders go almost unnoticed in a time of mass upheaval. Trapped in Spain by circumstances, he is determined to honor the memory of his family by remaining a Jew. On a donkey named Moise, Yonah begins a meandering journey, a young fugitive zigzagging across the vastness of Spain. Toiling at manual labor, he desperately tries to cling to his memories of a vanished culture. As a lonely shepherd on a mountaintop he hurls snatches of almost forgotten Hebrew at the stars, as an apprentice armorer he learns to fight like a Christian knight. Finally, as a man living in a time and land where danger from the Inquisition is everywhere, he deals with the questions that mark his past. How he discovers the answers, how he finds his way to a singular and strong Marrano woman, how he achieves a life with the outer persona of a respected Old Christian physician and the inner life of a secret Jew, is the fabric of this novel. The Last Jew is a glimpse of the past, an authentic tale of high adventure, and a tender and unforgettable love story. In it, NoahGordon utilizes his greatest strengths, and the result is remarkable and moving.

From the acclaimed author of The Jew in the Lotus comes an "engrossing and wonderful book" (The Washington Times) about the unexpected connections between Franz Kafka and Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav—and the significant role played by the imagination in the Jewish spiritual experience. Rodger Kamenetz has long been fascinated by the mystical tales of the Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. And for many years he has taught a course in Prague on Franz Kafka. The more he thought about their lives and writings, the more aware he became of unexpected connections between them. Kafka was a secular artist fascinated by Jewish mysticism, and Rabbi Nachman was a religious mystic who used storytelling to reach out to secular Jews. Both men died close to age forty of tuberculosis. Both invented new forms of storytelling that explore the search for meaning in an illogical, unjust world. Both gained prominence with the posthumous publication of their writing. And both left strict instructions at the end of their lives that their unpublished books be burnt. Kamenetz takes his ideas on the road, traveling to Kafka’s birthplace in Prague and participating in the pilgrimage to Uman, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman visited by thousands of Jews every Jewish new year. He discusses the hallucinatory intensity of their visions and offers a rich analysis of Nachman’s and Kafka’s major works, revealing uncanny similarities in the inner lives of these two troubled and beloved figures, whose creative and religious struggles have much to teach us about the Jewish spiritual experience.

Tales of terror and the supernatural hold an honored position in the Jewish folkloric tradition. Howard Schwartz has superbly translated and retold fifty of the best of these folktales. Gathered from countless sources ranging from the ancient Middle East to twelfth-century Germany and later Eastern European oral tradition, these captivating stories include Jewish variants of the Pandora and Persephone myths.

Shamanism has always been of great interest to anthropologists. More recently it has been discovered by westerners, especially New Age followers. This book breaks new ground byexamining pristine shamanism in Greenland, among people contacted late by Western missionaries and settlers. On the basis of material only available in Danish, and presented herein English for the first time, the author questions Mircea Eliade's well-known definition of the shaman as the master of ecstasy and suggests that his role has to be seen as that of a master of spirits. The ambivalent nature of the shaman and the spirit world in the tough Arctic environment is then contrasted with the more benign attitude to shamanism in the New Age movement. After presenting descriptions of their organizations and accounts by participants, the author critically analyses the role of neo-shamanic courses and concludes that it is doubtful to consider what isoffered as shamanism.