Saints' Impresarios

Yoram Bilu (Ph.D. Hebrew University) is a professor of anthropology and psychology at the Hebrew University. His main publications include Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and Experience (SUNY Press 1997, co-edited with Eyal Ben-Ari) and Without Bounds: The Life and Death of Rabbi Ya'aqov Wazana (Wayne State University Press 2000).

• I. The Folk-Veneration of Saints in Morocco and Israel. a. Dream Portal. b. Roots in the West: The Cult of Saints in Morocco. c. From West to East: Moroccan Jewry in Israel. d. Native Saints and Immigrant Saints: The “Sacred Geography” of Moroccan Jews in Israel.II. Avraham Ben-Hayyim and Rabbi David U-Moshe. a. A Dream Journey to the Saint. b. A Saint in the Next Room: Rabbi David u-Moshe and the Ben-Hayyim Family. c. The Abode of Rabbi David u-Moshe at the Dawn of the 21st Century. III. Ya’ish Ohana, Elijah the Prophet and the Gate of Paradise. a. The Road to Paradise. b. Dreamers in Paradise. c. Paradise Lost. IV. Alu Ezra and Rabbi Avraham Aouriwar. a. Early and Late Revelations. b. Life Story as Folktale: The Cinderella of Beit She’an. c. Twenty Years Later. V. Esther Suissa and Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yohai. a. From Patient to Healer. b. Written in the Egg Yolk: The Healing Art of Female Saints' Impresarios. c. Esther and Rabbi Shimon: A Return Visit. VI. The Cult of Saints from a Comparative Perspective: Symbol, Narrative, Gender and Identity. a. Crosscutting Stories: The Saint’s Impresarios from a Comparative Perspective. b. Personal symbols and Mythic Narratives. c. Gender and Sanctity: The Female Way to the Tsaddiq. d. Migrating Traditions: The Historic Timing and the “Shelf Life” of the New Shrines. e. The Cult of Saints as an Israeli and Local Phenomenon. Bibliography. Index.

"In this translation of Shoshvine ha-kedoshim, which began as a lecture series at the University of Rochester, Bilu (anthropology and psychology, Hebrew U., Jerusalem) examines the mystical cult of saints practiced by Moroccan (Mizhari) Jews who migrated to Israel in the 1970s and 1980s. To put modest pilgrimage sites for four tsaddiqim (holy men) in historical context, the author interviewed the sites' impresarios — some of them also healers — in fieldwork conducted in the 1980s and early 2000s. In psycho-cultural terms, he frames their attachment to a patron saint as a way to cope with challenges at different life stages. A glossary and photographs would have been appreciated."