Kabbalah

Purify Your Life With 17th-Century German Jewish Magic!

If you like your self-help books to feature Medieval Jewish magic, The Book of Abramelin is for you. Thought to have been written by the German Jewish Talmudist Rabbi Yaakov Moelin around 1608, The Book of Abramelin tells the story of a 15th-century Egyptian mage named Abramelin, who teaches magical and Kabbalistic secrets to Abraham […]

By Zachary Solomon

from Jewniverse

The Israeli Chutzpah Behind a Coconut Water Empire

Q: What do Madonna and a mensch named Ira have in common? A: Chutzpah and coconuts. In 2003, an Israeli-born New Yorker named Ira Liran and his childhood best friend, Michael Kirban, walked into a bar. There, they met a couple of Brazilian women lamenting how much they missed their homeland’s coconut water. Neither Ira […]

from Jewniverse

The Jewish Tradition of Circling the Dead

On Simchat Torah, Jewish communities across the world will take to the streets and the synagogue social halls to dance circles around the Torah for the holiday. But long before this 15th-century custom began, Jewish mysticism encouraged a very different kind of circling: circling around a corpse, to ward off evil spirits. The kabbalists, […]

from Jewniverse