This study provides basic historical and ethnographic information about saint veneration and its followers. What emerges is a picture of a strong community of believing Jews who lived in the expectancy of the coming of the Messiah and welcomed miracles as part of their routine life.
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This study provides basic historical and ethnographic information about saint veneration and its followers. What emerges is a picture of a strong community of believing Jews who lived in the expectancy of the coming of the Messiah and welcomed miracles as part of their routine life.
Read Less
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Seller's Description:
Very good in Very good jacket. 388, [2] pages. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Includes 32 black and white illustrations following page 197. Also includes Notes, Dates of the Hillulah; Morocco: Map of Jewish Saints; List of Saints According to Their Burial Place; Glossary; Bibliography; Index of Saints and Their Tombs; and General Index. Part One includes Introduction; Terms Used to Designate Saints; Genesis of a Saint; Families of Saints and Their Descendants; The Saints and Erets Yisra'el; Saints and Their Disciples; Saints as Miracle Makers; Saints and the World of Nature; Dreams in Saint Veneration; Visiting the Saint: The Hillulah; Poems and Songs of the Hillulah; The Communal Organization around the Holy Sites; Relations between Jews and Muslims in Saint Veneration; Saint Worship as Practiced by Jews and Muslims in Morocco; Moroccan Jewry and Saint Worship in Israel; and Conclusion. Part Two includes The Saints: Tales and Legends; and Holy Women: Tales and Legends. The author was a senior researcher and lecturer on Jewish and Comparative Folklore at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He eared his Ph.D. from the Georg-August University in Gottingen, Germany. This is one of the Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology. The author presents the reader with the miraculous tales and legends of the Jewish patron saints as well as a masterful compendium of 656 Jewish saints, including 25 women. This book assures us that the memory of these saints and of their devoted followers will be kept alive. Among Moroccan Jews, saint worship is an important cultural characteristic, practiced throughout the population. Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco, the only book in English on this topic, contains essential information about Moroccan Jewry not available anywhere else. The Hebrew edition, published by Magnes Press in 1984, has become a standard classic in the study of the history, culture, and religious practices of Moroccan Jewry. In this new English language edition, based on ten years of fieldwork, Issachar Ben-Ami provides the basic historical and ethnographic information about saint veneration. He illuminates the intricate network that connects the saints and their faithful followers, while revealing the ideological fundamentals that sustain the interrelationship and ensure ritual continuity. Using material selected from more than 1, 200 testimonies collected during the course of his research, Ben-Ami describes historical and legendary types of saints, customs and beliefs related to the saints or their sanctuaries, and the practices and ceremonies that take place during or outside the hillulah, the the festival that celebrates the anniversary of the death of a saint. Two chapters are dedicated to a comparison with the cult of saints among the Muslims in Morocco as well as to the relationship between Jews and Muslims in Morocco in what concerning saint veneration. In addition, Ben-Ami has included an exhaustive list of 656 saints-25 of whom are women-as well as documentation of the burial sites and legendary stories of the saints' lives as they have been told by their followers and worshippers in Israel. Also included are popular creative works such as legends, stories, dreams, and songs extolling the greatness and miraculous deeds of the saints. The picture that emerges from this study is that of a strong community of believing Jews who lived in the expectancy of the coming of the Messiah and welcomed miracles as part of their routine life. With the immigration of the Jews of Morocco to other countries, this fascinating world has disappeared, although it has found new ways of expression in Israel.
