Witch-hunt or women's oppression? The secularization and re-enchantment of the witches of Ashkelon tale by contemporary spiritualities' leaders

This study analyses the cosmology and theology being shaped by alternative spiritualities regarding the link between witchcraft and women. It raises issues of secularization and re-enchantment, religious/spiritual identities and feminism. The case study is the Israeli alternative spiritualities' leaders re-narration of a tale from rabbinic literature about the Ashkelon witch-hunt led by Rabbi Shim'on ben Shatach. This tale has been reshaped in different ways by spokespersons who represent various spiritual Jewish-Israeli paths. All alternative spiritual texts analysed here demonstrate their authors' identification with the rejected anti-heroines, the Ashkelonian witches. Some appropriate Judaism, whilst others criticize it; some write from within it, others from without. The alternative spiritual texts reflect different cosmological views contending with issues of secularization versus reenchantment, as well as various theologies or thealogies, and different religious feminist tones.