Semitic Neopaganism (also Canaanite Neopaganism, Hebrew Neopaganism, Jewish Neopaganism, Judeo-Paganism) is the revival, mostly US based, of religious traditions deriving from Ancient Semitic religion. In practice, there are a number of minor Neopagan movements that revive Iron Age Canaanite religion.
The polytheistic mainstream religious practice in Canaan, and especially in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the 10th to 7th centuries BCE, is evident from the writings of the biblical prophets (even though these texts are written from the point of view of the Yahwist faction). The notion of historical Israelite or Jewish polytheism has been popularized in the 1960s by Raphael Patai in The Hebrew Goddess, focusing on the cult of female goddesses such as the cult of Asherah in the Temple of Solomon.
During the 1970s growth of Neopaganism in the United States, a number of minor Canaanite or Israelite oriented groups emerged, mostly containing syncretistic elements from western occultism. Thus, Ordo Templi Astartes (OTA) merged Hermetic elements taken from rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with Phoenician and Canaanite and Israelite themes.[1]
Jewish Neopaganism specifically remains associated with Jewish feminism, focusing on the goddess cults of the Israelites.[2]
Since the early 1990s to early 2000s, some Canaanite Neopagan groups have formed online.
The most notable group today is known as Am Ha Aretz (עם הארץ, lit. "People of the Land", a rabbinical term for uneducated and religiously unobservant Jews), "Amha" for short. This group grew out of Ohavei Falcha, "Lovers of the Soil", a movement founded in the late 19th century.[3]
Elie Sheva, according to her own testimony an "elected leader of AMHA" reportedly founded a US branch of the group, known as "Primitive Hebrew Assembly".[4][5]
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Surveys have shown that people with Jewish backgrounds are twice as likely to become Neopagans, in comparison to Gentiles (non-Jews). Some Jewish Pagans have returned to their own Semitic traditions for inspiration.
Beit Asherah "the house of the Goddess Asherah", was one of the first Neopagan synagogues, founded in the early 1990s by Stephanie Fox, Steven Posch, and Magenta Griffiths (Lady Magenta). Magenta Griffiths is High Priestess of the Beit Asherah coven, and a former board member of the Covenant of the Goddess.[6][7]
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