Were the Rabbis Troubled by Witches?

Abstract

Rabbinic key texts like the Talmud provide us with many references on magical phenomena. As the last decades saw a rising interest in the research on magic, mysticism and related phenomena, magic is more and more perceived as a central theme in rabbinic Judaism, with the rabbis as ‘kosher’ magicians. As was noticed by some scholars, gender-typing of magicians is an important component of the rabbinic doctrines of magic, where women are depicted as witches, illicit practitioners of the magical arts.¹ Although in contrast with the data extracted from the sources themselves, the common stereotype of the ‘woman as witch’ refers to ‘sorcerer’ rather than ‘witch’. More importantly, there is hardly any evidence in rabbinic sources of actions undertaken by rabbis against witches, except the well-known story, vaguely based on an historical incident, of R. Simeon ben Shetah hanging eighty witches in Ashkelon.²