“Qabbalah, the Theos-Sophia of the Jews:”

Jewish Theosophists and their Perceptions

of Kabbalah1
Boaz Huss

Introduction
In 1914, Leonard Bosman, a Jewish fellow of the Theosophical Society
in London, published a short book entitled The Music of the Spheres in
which he discussed the reconciliation of Judaism and Theosophy. He
responded to those who denied such a possibility:
Have they heard about the inner doctrine, the received wisdom,
the Qabbalah or the doctrine of the heart, or the Theos-Sophia
of the Jews? But verily, the Secret Doctrine of the Jews is
Theos-Sophia and nothing but Theos-Sophia, and hence it is a
matter of perfect simplicity to reconcile the two teachings that
emanate from One source (Bosman 1914: 5).
Similar perceptions concerning the significance of the Kabbalah and
its essential identity with Theosophy were prevalent amongst other
Jewish members of the Society. Pursuing this notion that Kabbalah
reconciles Judaism and Theosophy, many Jewish Theosophists studied
Kabbalah, translated kabbalistic texts, and published articles and books
about Kabbalah, in which they created theosophically inspired modern
forms of Kabbalah.

1 This article is based on research conducted in the framework of the research

project Kabbalah and the Theosophical Society (1875-1936), funded by the Israeli
Science Foundation (grant 774/10). During my research, I received kind and
generous assistance of many scholars, fellows of the Theosophical Society, family
members of Jewish theosophists, librarians and archivists. I would like to give
special thanks to John Algeo, Mary Anderson, Pat Deveney, Marc Demarest,
Renger Dijkstra, Michael Gomes, Janet Kerschner, Ann Matthews, Abraham
Oron, Leslie Price, Barry Thompson and Ryan Waller. I am grateful to Julie
Chajes, who read earlier drafts of the paper, for her very helpful comments.

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The contribution of Jewish theosophists to modern formations of

Kabbalah has not yet been researched, and very little has been written
about Jewish involvement in the Theosophical Society.2 The aim of
this chapter is to offer a preliminary study of Jewish theosophists and
their interpretations of Kabbalah and analyze the contexts and
significance of Jewish-theosophical appropriations of Kabbalah. Before
turning to perceptions of Kabbalah amongst Jewish theosophists, I will
offer an overview of the history of Jews in the Theosophical Society
and the formation of specifically Jewish theosophical groups, primarily,
the Association of Hebrew Theosophists (hence AHT), founded in
Adyar, in 1925. This will be followed by a short discussion of the
interest of non-Jewish theosophists, especially Madame Blavatsky, in
Kabbalah. The interest of the Jewish theosophists in Kabbalah was
stimulated and influenced by the importance given to Kabbalah in
Theosophy. Nonetheless, in contrast to the ambivalent stance of
Blavatsky and other occultists towards Jewish Kabbalah, Jewish
theosophists valorized the Kabbalah unequivocally, and emphasized
its Jewish nature and origins. The Jewish theosophists under
consideration here regarded Kabbalah as a highly significant component
of Judaism itself, and advocated the use of Kabbalah in the spiritual
reform of Judaism. Finally, I will discuss the wider context of Jewish
theosophical appropriations of Kabbalah, and the relations between
Jewish Theosophy and the academic study of Kabbalah. I will argue
that the Jewish theosophists’ interpretations of Kabbalah were part of
a wider current of modern-Jewish interest in Kabbalah, and that some
of their basic assumptions about the nature and significance of Kabbalah
resemble and interconnect with the perceptions of modern scholars of
Kabbalah.

Jewish Theosophists
From its very beginning, in the autumn of 1875, Jews were active in
the Theosophical Society. One of the founding members was David E.
de Lara, a British Jewish linguist and a Freemason. He was affiliated
with the Reform Movement and participated in the first meetings of

2 The only studies dedicated to Jewish theosophists are Cohen 1965 and Huss
2010.

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the Theosophical Society in New York (Deveney 2011). Many more

Jews joined the Society in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth
centuries. In some theosophical centers around the world, there were
relatively large numbers of Jewish fellows, and some of them took
leading roles in the theosophical lodges.
Several Jews became active in theosophical centers in India. They
hailed from the three main Indian Jewish communities: the Cochin
Jews, the Bene Israel, and the Iraqis. In 1882, more than three years
after Blavatsky and Olcott moved the headquarters of the Society to
India, the Iraqi, A. D. Ezekiel (d. 1897), joined. He became a prominent
member of the Pune Branch. Other members of the Iraqi Jewish
community in India also joined the Society during later periods and
took part in the foundation of the Association of Hebrew Theosophists
in 1925. In the early-twentieth century, Jews from the Bene Israel
community also became theosophists. Amongst them was N. E. David
from Karachi, author of several articles in The Theosophist in 1907-1908,
which dealt with “Israelitism” and Theosophy.3 Another was Jacob E.
Solomon (1884-1941), a medical doctor, social worker, and Freemason
from Ahmadabad. During the First World War, Solomon, who served
in the British army, established a theosophical lodge in Basra, Iraq
([n.a.] 1937: 237; Kanga 1941). Later, he was among the founders of
the AHT. A member of the Cochin Jewish community was also among
the Jewish theosophists in India: A. B. (Abraham Barak) Salem (1882-
1967), a lawyer, political and social activist, and later a Zionist who
took part in the foundation of the AHT.
Jewish theosophists were also active in other theosophical centers
in South East Asia. One of the founders of the first theosophical lodges
in China—Saturn Lodge in Shanghai—was Alex Horne, originally
from Odessa. Horne later moved to San Francisco, and became active
in the American branch of the AHT (Horne 1925). Another Jewish
member of the Theosophical Society in Shanghai was the medical
doctor, Hugo Reiss (Noblston 1925: 180). David Gubbay was active in
the Hong Kong Lodge and served in 1924 as its vice president (Lanepart
1925: 182).

3 The articles were later reprinted by the Indian Section of the AHT (David 1928).

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Jewish theosophists were also active in the Middle East. I have

already mentioned the establishment of a theosophical lodge in Basra,
Iraq, by Jacob E. Solomon in 1915. In the late-1920’s another Jewish
theosophical lodge, which will be discussed later, was active in that
city. In Egypt, the businessman J. H. Perez (later a founder of the
AHT) served as the general secretary of the Theosophical Society
(Perez 1925: 124).
Jews had been active in theosophical lodges in Europe since the
beginning of its activities on the continent. In Vienna, Friedrich Eckstein
(1861-1939), a son of a wealthy and acculturated Jewish family,
established the Vienna Lodge and was its first president (Mulot-Déri
1992: 298-300). A Jewish scholar from Vienna with an interest in
Theosophy (following his brother’s activities in the Society) was Ernst
Müller (1880-1954). Müller was an enthusiastic zionist who resided in
Palestine from 1907-1909. He later became a lifelong follower of
Rudolph Steiner and Anthroposophy, and wrote several books on
Kabbalah (Kilcher 2016), discussed below.
Jews were also active in the German-speaking theosophical center
in Prague. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Theosophy
attracted the attention of Berta Fanta, née Sohr (1866-1918), her sister,
Ida Freund (1868-1931), and Berta’s daughter Else (b. 1886), the first
wife of Hugo Bergman (1883-1975), a zionist activist and the future
rector of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Berta and Ida gave
lectures on Theosophy, and were very much influenced by Steiner,
who lectured at the Fanta residence during his visit to Prague in 1911
(Franz Kafka attended these lectures). After Steiner left the Theosophical
Society, the first branch of the Anthroposophical Society in Prague
(named after the philosopher Bolzano) was founded at the Fanta
residence (Iggers 1995: 151-152). Bergman remained interested in
Steiner’s ideas throughout his life, although he never became a member
of the Anthroposophical Society (Kilcher 2016).
Jews were also active in other centers in Europe. According to a
1904 report by Decio Clavari, a group of Jewish theosophists were
active in Livorno, Italy, during the early-twentieth century. They were
admirers of the kabbalist and philosopher, Rabbi Eliahu Benamozegh
(1823-1900), and were led by his disciple, Rabbi Arrigo Lates (1879-
1918). The Orientalist Giorgio Levi della Vida (1886-1967), for

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example, was an Italian Jewish scholar who participated in meetings

of Theosophical Society in Rome in his youth (Pasi 2010a: 585-586).
In Belgium, Gaston Polak (b. 1874), a mining engineer, joined the
Theosophical Society in the late-nineteenth century, became the general
secretary of the Belgium branch in 1913, and later served as the president
of the AHT (Polak 1925: 110). A report in The Theosophist from
September 1907 informs us of a Jewish theosophist who was active in
the Liberal Jewish Union, which established the first French reform
synagogue in Rue Copernic ([n.a.] 1907: 938-940).
In the early-twentieth century, several Jews became active members
of the Theosophical Society in England. Leonard Bosman (1879-c.1940),
the president of the Hackney Lodge in London, published many articles
and books on Theosophy, some of them dealing with Jewish topics,
especially with the Kabbalah. Joshua Abelson (1873-1940), a scholar
of Jewish studies, served as a rabbi in Cardiff, Bristol, and Leeds, and
became affiliated with the Society in the first decade of the twentieth
century. He published a few articles in theosophical journals and gave
lectures at theosophical lodges (Greene 2012: 297). Another prominent
Theosophist was Samuel Levi Bensusan (1872-1958), editor of the
journal The Jewish World in the late 1890’s and later, a renowned
novelist. Bensusan published many articles (mostly reviews) in
theosophical journals and became the editor of the renewed Theosophical
Review (1925-1928). Two other notable Jewish theosophists in London
were Michael Juste (a.k.a Michael Houghton) and his friend Raphael
Hurst (1898-1981). Hurst later became a follower of the Indian Guru
Ramana Maharshi, and under the name Paul Brunton published the
influential book, In search of Secret India (1934). Juste later became
associated with Aleister Crowely and founded the occult bookstore
Atlantis, in London. He described his and Brunton’s experiences in the
Theosophical Society in The White Brother: An Occult Autobiography
(1927).
Leonard Bosman’s teacher, Elias Gewurtz was also a member of
the Theosophical Society in London. Gewutrz was born in Dembitz
(DeÇbica) to a notable rabbinic family ([n.a.] 1960: 34). In the early
1900’s he immigrated to London, where he joined the Society. Gewurtz
published several articles and books on Kabbalah, some of them together
with Bosman. Later, he traveled to America and settled in California,

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where he was also affiliated with the Theosophical Society, and

continued to lecture and publish on Kabbalah (Gewurtz 1918). In
California, Gewurtz was acquainted with two Jewish theosophists who
later became followers of the Sufi teacher, Inayat Khan. Their names
were Ada Martin (1871-1947), also known as Murshida Rabia Martin,
and Samuel Lewis (1896-1971), also known as “Sufi Sam.” Many
other American Jews joined the Theosophical Society in the first three
decades of the twentieth century. Some of them became active in the
American branch of the AHT.
Finally, before turning to examine the foundation of the AHT, I
would like to mention the prominent place of Jews in the first South
African Lodge of the Theosophical Society. Lewis W. Ritch (1868-1952)
founded the lodge in Johannesburg in 1899. Ritch was a Jewish
businessman from England, who later became a close supporter of
Gandhi and worked in Gandhi’s law firm (Chattarjee 1992: 39-42; Lev
2016). Another Jewish fellow of the Johannesburg Lodge was Hermann
Kallenbach (1871-1945) who was born in Lithuania and studied
architecture in Germany. After he had immigrated to South Africa, he
became Gandhi’s intimate companion, and in later years, a zionist
(Lev 2012; 2016). Henry S. L. Polak (1882-1959), who described
himself as “by birth a member (though a very unorthodox one) of the
Jewish community, of long rabbinical descent” (Polak 1957: 322) arrived
in South Africa from England in 1903 and became a fellow of the
Theosophical Society in 1905. Polak was also a close friend of Gandhi’s,
an active member of the South African Theosophical Society, and a
supporter of the AHT (Lev 2016).

The Association of Hebrew Theosophists

Although many Jews were active in the Theosophical Society, a
specifically Jewish theosophical association was only established fifty
years after the foundation of the Society itself. In December 1925,
Jewish theosophists from all over the world met at the Jubilee Congress
of the Theosophical Society in Adyar. Several of the Jewish delegates
arrived from outside India: Gaston Polak, from Brussels; J. H. Perez,
from Cairo; M. Cohen, from Sofia, Bulgaria; and Pia Müller, from
Trieste. Other delegates came from the Indian Jewish communities:

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S. S. (Samuel Suliman) Cohen, a member of the Iraqi Jewish community

in India, studying at the time in the theosophical ashram in Adyar; A.
B. Salem from the Jewish community of Cochin; and Dr. Jacob E.
Solomon, from the Bene Israel community in Ahmedabad.
These Jewish delegates decided to establish a Jewish theosophical
section, which they named the Association of Hebrew Theosophists.
They nominated Gaston Polak as president. The foundation of the
association was celebrated in a ceremony in which Annie Besant laid
the foundation stone for a synagogue at the Adyar compound. The
declared objects of the nascent association were:
1. To study Judaism in light of Theosophy and Theosophy in
light of Judaism.
2. To spread theosophical teachings among the Jews.
3. To undertake any other activity which could aid in the
realization of the objects of the Association (Polak 1926:
103).
Over the next few years, the AHT published Bosman’s A Plea for
Judaism (1926), raised funds for the construction of the Adyar synagogue
and established regional sections. Branches were founded in India,
England, and Holland, and there were national representatives of the
AHT in Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium, Austria, Czechoslovakia, France,
Hungary, Poland, and Romania (Cohen 1928).
The most active section of the AHT was the American one,
established in 1926. The president of the American Section was Henry
C. Samuels (1886-1965) from Seattle. Samuels was born as Henry
Cohen Katz in Russia. He immigrated to the United States when he
was 21 years old and had been active in the Theosophical Society
since 1919 (Waller 2011). The vice president was Mrs. W. B.
Rubin/Bozena Brydlova (b. 1886), from Milwaukee, and the secretary
was Louis B. Ball (1884-1965), of Long Beach, California. Local
groups of the American Section were founded in different locations in
the United States, and held meeting and lectures. In 1927, the American
Section published a booklet by Alex Horne, Spiritualizing Unspiritual
Judaism (1926). The major activity of the American Section of the
AHT was the publication of a journal, intended as a quarterly, The
Jewish Theosophist, edited by Henry C. Samuels, and printed in Seattle.
The journal was published (with intervals) between 1926 and 1932. It

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published articles on general theosophical issues, Theosophy and

Judaism, Kabbalah, and Hasidism.
In 1926, in Basra, Iraq, Kaduri Ani (the brother of Reuven Ani,
who was active in the AHT in India) founded a Jewish theosophical
group. Ani served as the head of Basra’s Jewish lay council. In 1928,
he got into a dispute over council taxes with other members of the
Jewish community. His opponents informed the Rabbis of Baghdad of
Ani’s involvement in the Theosophical Society. The Rabbis consulted
with Rabbinic authorities from the United States and England and
ordered Ani and his followers to leave the Theosophical Society. When
they refused, the authorities excommunicated them. The
excommunication was followed by a fierce controversy. Kaduri Ani
and his supporters (about 300 families—not all of them members of
the Theosophical Society) seceded from the Jewish community and
established a separate congregation with their own rabbi, ritual
slaughterer, synagogue, and graveyard. In 1936 a truce was reached,
the ban removed, and the theosophically oriented community dissolved.
In 1945, Kaduri Ani and his family immigrated to Israel (Cohen 1965).
By the mid-1930’s, the various sections of the AHT dissolved.
Nonetheless, some of the former fellows, as well as other Jewish
theosophists, continued their activities. In 1953, the first lodge of the
Israeli Section was founded in Safed. Still active today, it opened
several lodges, published newsletters and journals, and translated
theosophical literature into Hebrew. The founders of the Israeli Section
were immigrants, mostly from Europe: Chana and Pinchas Mor, from
Germany; Bertha Masha Dominic, from Rumania; and Hans Zeuger,
from Austria. Zeuger became the presidential agent of the Theosophical
Society in Israel. He had been president of the Fraternitas Theosophical
Lodge in Austria before his emigration to Palestine in 1932 ([n.a.]
1925: clvii). Rosa Ani, the wife of the leader of the Basra community,
was also active in the early Israeli Section, and the meetings of the
Moriah Lodge, in Jerusalem, were held at her home (Zeuger 1959: 4).

Theosophy and Kabbalah

Most of the Jewish theosophists mentioned above were interested in
preserving their Jewish identity and reconciling it with the ideals of

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the Theosophical Society. Kabbalah played a central role in the attempts

of Jewish theosophists to harmonize Judaism and Theosophy. Following
Madame Blavatsky and other non-Jewish theosophists, they regarded
Kabbalah as representing the secret doctrine of the Jews, a perennial
knowledge essentially identical with other esoteric traditions and with
the teaching of the Society. Yet, although Jewish theosophists were
much influenced by Blavatsky’s ideas, in general, their perceptions
differed from those of non-Jewish theosophists in significant ways.
Before turning to examine Jewish-theosophical perceptions of Kabbalah,
I would like to offer a brief discussion of the interest of non-Jewish
theosophists, especially, Madame Blavatsky, in Kabbalah.
The Theosophical Society has been concerned with Kabbalah since
its very beginning. “Cabala” was indicated as one of the main topics
(together with occultism) to be studied by the society, at its foundational
meeting in Blavatsky’s apartment in New York, on 8 September 1875
(Santucci 1997: 243). The evening before the meeting in which the
Society was founded, George H. Felt (1831-1895), later co-vice-
president of the Theosophical Society, gave a lecture on “The Egyptian
Cabala” (Santucci 1997: 243-256; Pasi 2010b, 158; Hall [Chajes] 2012:
191-192). His lecture was based on his unpublished book The Kabbalah
of the Egyptian and the Greek Canon of Proportions (Santucci 1997:
255; Demarest 2011). Kabbalah, for Felt, was a geometrical figure, the
perfect system of proportions, known to the Egyptians and Greeks,
and which provided the key to the Bible, human culture, and nature
itself. Although Felt regarded Kabbalah as Greek and Egyptian, and
distinguished it from the “Hebraic style” of Kabbalah, he believed that
the learned rabbis who made investigations into the Hebrew Kabbalah
were also able to solve inexplicable mysteries (Demarest 2011: 18).
The other co-vice-president of the nascent Theosophical Society,
Seth Pancoast (1823- 1889), was also a known kabbalist. In 1883, he
published a book entitled The Kabbalah or the True Science of Light:
An Introduction to the Philosophy and Theosophy of the Ancient Sages.
He also published two articles on Kabbalah (“Kabbalah” and “The
Mystery of Numbers”) in the April and May 1886 issues of The Path.
Pancoast regarded the Kabbalah as an ancient Oriental system of
philosophy and theosophy, the source of all known religions and
philosophies (Pancoast 1883: 11, 17; 1886a: 8). According to Pancoast,

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the Kabbalah did not originate within Judaism: “The Kabbalah was
formerly a tradition, as the word implies, and is generally supposed to
have originated with the Jewish Rabbins. The word is of Hebrew
origins, but the esoteric science it represents did not originate with the
Jews; they simply recorded what had previously been traditional”
(Pancoast 1886a: 8). Although, according to Pancoast, the Kabbalah
was not originally Jewish, he asserted that the first records of the
Kabbalah were the Sepher Yezira and the Sepher ha-Zohar, and he
described the kabbalistic sefirot in detail (Pancoast 1883: 21-25). He
stated that the hidden secrets of the Oriental Kabbalah were about to
be revealed and would enlighten present and future generations (Pancoast
1886a: 13).
Other members of the early Theosophical Society also discussed
Kabbalah. Founding member, Emma Harding Britten, distinguished
between the Oriental Cabala and the Jewish one in her works Ghost
Land and Art Magic (both 1876). This was an idea that played an
important role in Blavatsky’s perception of Kabbalah (Hall [Chajes]
2012: 215; Chajes 2016). J. D. Buck (1838-1916), the founder of the
theosophical lodge in Cincinnati, claimed in his article “The Cabbalah”
(1883), that Kabbalah was secret wisdom embedded in the Hebrew
scriptures, the Pyramids in Egypt and America, and the measures,
motions, and space of the heavenly bodies. The key to this wisdom
was lost from Judaism, which became “a close corporation for
commercial speculations and mutual protection” (Buck 1883: 44). Buck
relied on the ideas of his fellow Cincinnatian, J. Ralston Skinner (1830-
1893). Skinner claimed in his article, “Notes on the Cabbalah of the
Old Testament” that Kabbalah is the rational foundation of the Hebrew
Scriptures, and the “sublime science” upon which Masonry is based
(1886: 104). Other articles on Kabbalah were printed in theosophical
journals in the late-nineteenth century, including “Kabbalah and
Microcosm” by Montague R. Lazarus (1887) and “About the Kabbalah”
by Henry Pratt (1889).
Kabbalah played an important role in the writings of Madame
Blavatsky. It was discussed in her first article on the occult, “A Few
Questions to ‘Hiraf’” (1875a) and in her two major works, Isis Unveiled
(1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), as well as in several of her
articles, especially, “The Kabalah [sic] and the Kabalists at the Close

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of the Nineteenth Century” (1892). Blavatsky’s extensive knowledge

of Kabbalah was derived mostly from Christian kabbalistic sources,
from nineteenth-century occult and Masonic writings, and from
nineteenth-century scholarly works on Kabbalah. Notwithstanding
Blavatsky’s interest in Kabbalah, and the importance she gave it in her
account of the transmission of perennial wisdom, she had an ambivalent
attitude to both Jewish and Christian Kabbalah. Her expositions of
Kabbalah were not always clear and coherent, and some of her opinions
regarding Kabbalah changed with time (Pasi 2010b, Hall [Chajes]
2012: 207-232; Chajes 2016).
In “A Few Questions to Hiraf,” Blavatsky defined Kabbalah as
“the compound mystic textbook of all the great secrets of Nature” and
distinguished between the “Primitive Oriental Cabala” and a corrupted
“Western Cabala” (Blavatsky 1875a). According to Blavatsky, the
Oriental Cabala was transmitted orally by the wise men of Chaldea,
India, Persia, and Egypt. Yet Moses, (who was initiated in Egypt)
altered and corrupted the original traditions, and hence the Mosaic, or
Jewish Cabala, as well as the Christian one that was dependent on it,
was full of misinterpretations (Blavatsky 1875a). Hence, as Marco
Pasi noted, “the Jews are seen not as the originators and authors of
Cabala, but as merely responsible for the alteration of its primordial
purity” (Pasi 2010b: 159).
Blavatsky devoted an entire chapter to Kabbalah in Isis Unveiled
and referred many times to kabbalistic ideas in The Secret Doctrine. In
her books, she elaborated on several kabbalistic ideas and presented
analogies with Hindu ideas. In Isis Unveiled, she reiterated that the
“Oriental Kabala” was much older and purer than the “Western Chaldeo-
Jewish Kabbalah” (Blavatsky 1877: 17; Hall [Chajes] 2012: 217). In
her article, “The Kabalah and the Kabalists at the Close of the Nineteenth
Century,” probably written around 1886, Blavatsky again emphasized
the universality of Kabbalah: “If Kabalah [sic] as a word is Hebrew,
the system itself is no more Jewish than is sunlight; it is universal. On
the other hand, the Jews can claim the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah (Book
of Creation), Sepher Dzeniuta, and a few others, as their own undeniable
property and as Kabalistic works.” Although Blavatsky claimed that
the Kabbalah extant in the West did not repay the trouble of a lifetime
of study, she maintained that real, initiated kabbalists still exist,

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especially in Germany and Poland, yet they do not publish what they
know, nor refer to themselves as kabbalists (Blavatsky 1892: 191,
195-196).

“Qabbalah, the Theos-Sophia of the Jews”

Following the interest of Blavatsky and other non-Jewish theosophists
in Kabbalah, many of the Jewish theosophists mentioned above wrote
books and articles on the topic, and some of them translated Jewish
kabbalistic texts. In 1887, A. D. Ezekiel, the Jewish theosophist from
Pune, published a short story, The Kabbalist of Jerusalem (Ezekiel
1887a). Around the same time, he printed (in his own press) several
kabbalistic texts translated by him into Jewish Arabic, including the
section from the Zohar known as the Idra Zuta (Ezekiel 1887b), the
Sepher Yezirah (Ezekiel 1888b), the first part of Shomer Emunim by
Yosef Ergas (Ezekiel 1888c), and Drush be-Inian ha-Emunah ha-Amitit
(The Sermon of True Faith) (Ezekiel 1888d). The latter was a summary
of a Sabbatean text by Michael Cardozo (Huss 2010: 183). Ezekiel
also published an Introduction to the Kabalah (Ezekiel 1888a), in
English, addressing this book to fellow members of the Theosophical
Society in India.
As mentioned above, Ernst Müller, a theosophist and later
Anthroposophist, translated several kabbalistic texts and wrote about
Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Müller published translations of Zohar
passages into German (which he prepared together with Hugo Bergman)
in the volume Von Judentum, and in the journal Der Jude (Huss 2007:
67). Müller published two books in German about the Zohar: Der
Sohar und Seine Lehre: Einleitung in die Gedankenwelt der Kabbalah
(1920) and Der Sohar: Das Heilige Buch Der Kabbalah, Nach dem
Urtext (1932). After he found refuge in England during the Second
World War, he published History of Jewish Mysticism, in English
(1946).
From 1910, Leonard Bosman, the Jewish Theosophist from London,
published many articles and books on Kabbalah. These included a
series of “Esoteric Studies” published by Dharma Press, the first of
which was The Mysteries of the Qabbalah (1913), followed by Amen,
The Key to the Universe (ca. 1923), The Book of Genesis Unveiled (ca.

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1925) and A Plea for Judaism (1926) published by the Association of

Hebrew Theosophists. Elias Gewurtz, the teacher and colleague of
Bosman, also published several articles and books on Kabbalah such
as “The Qabalah” in The Theosophist (1914). Together with Bosman,
he published The Cosmic Wisdom as Embodied in the Qabbalah and
in the Symbolical Hebrew Alphabet (1914). Gewurtz continued to lecture
and publish on Kabbalah after he immigrated to the United States.
There, he published, The Hidden Treasures of the Ancient Qabalah
(1918), a book based on lectures he gave in 1915 at the Krotona Lodge
of the Theosophical Society. Kabbalah was also discussed in his last
book, Beautiful Thoughts of the Ancient Hebrews (1924).
Joshua Abelson, the English rabbi, scholar and Theosophist,
published articles about Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah, including
“Talmud and Theosophy” (1905) and “Rabbinical Mysticism” (1912a).
These were published in the Theosophical Review. He also wrote
“Swedenborg and the Zohar” (1921) and “Occult Thought in Jewish
Literature” (1924), published in the Jewish Chronicle. In 1912, he
published and influential book, The Immanence of God in Rabbinical
Literature (1912b), and a year later, Jewish Mysticism: An Introduction
to the Kabbalah (1913), published in G. R. S. Mead’s Quest series.
Abelson also composed the introduction to the first comprehensive
translation of the Zohar into English, by Maurice Simon, Harry Sperling,
and Paul. P. Levertoff published by the Soncino press (1931-1934).
Members of the AHT, mostly from the American Section, were
interested in Jewish mysticism and several articles about Kabbalah
and Hasidism were published in The Jewish Theosophist. Pia Müller,
one of the founders, published an article about “The Chassidim” (1927).
Mrs. W. B. Rubin (Bozena Brydlova), the vice-president of the American
Section, lectured on Jewish mysticism at the Milwaukee Lodge of the
Theosophical Society ([n.a.] 1926) and published an article about the
“The Ancient Kabbalah” (Brydlova 1926). Other articles about Kabbalah
and Hasidism published in The Jewish Theosophist include Rabbi
Leonide Stambalchek’s “Hasidism—One of the Jewish Aspects of
Theosophy” (1927) and H. Blumenfeld “Theosophy and Cabala” (1927).
Alex Horn, the Jewish Theosophist from Shangahi, later active in the
American Section of the AHT, lectured on “Jewish Mysticism” at the
Pacific Lodge of the Theosophical Society in San Francisco in 1926,

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and published a booklet called An Introduction to Esoteric Judaism

(1928), based on this lecture. He also discussed Jewish mysticism in
various articles in theosophical journals, as well as in Spiritualizing
Unspiritual Judaism (1926a), published by the American Section of
the AHT (Horne 1926b: 1927, 1929).
These writings of Jewish theosophists present a variety of different
interpretations of Kabbalah. Yet, there are some perceptions that recur.
Some perceptions are dependent on the theosophical framework of
their interest in Kabbalah, and on the influence of theosophical and
esoteric writings, primarily those of Madame Blavatsky. Furthermore,
the Jewish identity of the Jewish theosophists, as well as their greater
access to (and interest in) Jewish kabbalistic sources, shaped the unique
perceptions that characterized the Kabbalah of Jewish theosophists.
As mentioned above, Blavatsky and other early theosophists derived
their knowledge of Kabbalah from the Christian Kabbalah of the
Renaissance and Baroque periods, nineteenth-century occultist
Kabbalah, and modern scholarship on Kabbalah (almost exclusively
written by scholars of Jewish origin). These sources, together with the
writings of Blavatsky and other early theosophists, were also the main
sources of knowledge of the Jewish theosophists. It should be
emphasized that knowledge of Kabbalah was very limited amongst
Jews in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, especially in
the modern Westernized circles that most Jewish theosophists came
from. In many Jewish circles, especially in Western Europe and the
United States, Kabbalah was rejected and disparaged. Most of the
Jewish theosophists did not receive a traditional Jewish education, and
none of them studied Kabbalah in a traditional Jewish institute. Most
of the Jewish theosophists (including those who had some Jewish
education) arrived at the study of Kabbalah following their interest in
Theosophy and Western esotericism. Thus, for instance, A. D. Ezekiel
wrote (in Jewish-Arabic), in his introduction to Idra Zuta:
Ten years ago some people came from America who called
themselves the Sufi Society [...] I met them and joined their
society five years ago. I have seen from their writings that much
of their movement was based on our Kabbalah [...] The members
of the Sufi Society that came to Bombay were not Jewish. I was
very much astonished that foreign people were experts in our

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wisdom of Kabbalah, while we, the Jews, were barred from it.
So, after much effort and sleepless nights, I studied a little of it,
and what I have studied, I will reveal to my brethren (Ezekiel
1887b).
Similarly, in a later period, Leonard Bosman related that although he
originally came from a “fairly orthodox” Jewish family, he and his
family were estranged from Jewish tradition. It was only through the
Theosophical Society that he found the “light of Judaism,” i.e., the
Kabbalah (1926: 17-19). Although Bosman probably knew some
Hebrew, the major sources of his knowledge on Kabbalah were Western
esoteric (especially the writing of Fabre d’Olivet), and nineteenth-
century scholarly works on Kabbalah (Gilbert 2005: xii). Bosman’s
colleague and teacher, Elias Gewurtz, probably received a traditional
Jewish education in his Eastern European hometown. According to the
introduction to Beautiful Thoughts of the Ancient Hebrews, he “spent
his youth in the study of Talmud. Kabbalah, Haskala [...] Many years
spent in the study of old MSS and books of antiquity in the British
Museum have yielded him a treasure of Hebrew lore [...] Mr. Gewurtz
speaks Hebrew fluently and finds his greatest enjoyment in the study
of the Kabbalah” (Gewurtz 1924: 3). Nonetheless, like Bosman, his
knowledge and perception of Kabbalah were based primarily on Western
esoteric sources and contemporary scholarly works on Kabbalah, not
on original Jewish kabbalistic texts. Gewurtz brings many citations
from the Zohar and other kabbalistic sources in his writing, but most,
if not all of them, are false citations that cannot be found in the
original texts (Scholem 1995: 6-5).
Some Jewish theosophists had access to original Jewish kabbalistic
texts and had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic to read
them, although they were not trained in traditional kabbalistic yeshivot.
A. D. Ezekiel was able to read and translate the Zohar and some other
kabbalistic writings. Yet, as he himself relates, he was unable to
understand a word of the Lurianic text, Etz Hayyim (Ezekiel 1888c).
Ezekiel’s Introduction to the Kabbalah (the only English language
text his press published), was based on the English translation of an
early nineteenth-century scholarly work on Kabbalah, by the Jewish
scholar, Peter Beer, prepared by Ridley Haim Herschell, a Polish Jew
and convert to evangelical Christianity (Huss 2010: 181). Joshua

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Abelson, the Anglo-Jewish scholar and rabbi, had good knowledge of

Talmudic and kabbalistic sources. Yet, he was not an expert on Kabbalah
and relied mostly on secondary scholarly literature. In the preface to
his Introduction to Jewish Mysticism, he acknowledged, “the translated
extracts from the Zohar are only in some cases made by me from the
original Hebrew-Aramaic. I owe many of them to the French and
German translations to be found in the works of scholars from whom I
have drawn much of my material” (Abelson 1913: vi). Ernst Müller
also had some firsthand knowledge of kabbalistic sources, especially,
of the Zohar, from which he published translated passages. Yet, his
writings on the Zohar, as well as his History of Jewish Mysticism,
were dependent to a large extent on contemporary scholarship and
Western-esoteric perceptions of Kabbalah (Kilcher 2016).
Most of the Jewish theosophists had no contact with traditional
Jewish kabbalists. A unique event, in which they did, happened during
the 1932 visit of Rabbi Hayim Yehuda Leib Auerbach to New York.
Auerbach was the head of one of the major kabbalistic yeshivot in
Jerusalem, Shaar ha-Shamaim. During his visit, Auerbach gave a lecture
at the New York branch of the AHT (Samuels 1932: 7). Jennie Wilson,
a member of the AHT from Long Island, New York, described the
meeting with Auerbach:
Last March, a celebrated Jewish scholar and Cabalist came to
New York from Jerusalem [...] The writer was fortunate to come
in contact with the famous Rabbi Auerbach, to explain to him
the ideals and aims of the Theosophical Society and hopes of
the Association Hebrew Theosophists. The existence of the
Society was new to him, but when some of the teachings were
mentioned, especially re-incarnation, his face lighted up in
recognition. “You mean Gilgal,” [sic] he said. Then he proceeded
to give me the following information about his university (Wilson
1932: 317).
In contrast to theosophists with an ambivalent stance towards the
Jewishness of Kabbalah, Jewish theosophists generally emphasized
the Jewish origins, and Jewish nature of Kabbalah. They underlined
the centrality of the Kabbalah in the universal secret doctrine that the
Theosophical Society purported to reveal, and claimed there was a
similarity, even an identity, between Kabbalah and Theosophy.

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Thus, for instance, in his article “Theosophy and Cabala,” the

American Jewish Theosophist, H. Blumenfeld, emphasized that although
the Kabbalah was influenced by Zoroastrianism (a view common in
Western esoteric circles) it originated in Palestine, and was essentially
Jewish:
Being a Jew, I am intensely interested in the teachings of
Theosophy in the light of Cabala, for according to my own
absolute knowledge, Theosophy is a correct prototype of the
Cabala of old; born in old Palestine and nursed at the breast of
Zoroastric philosophy, and in former Talmudic days looked upon
as a divine revelation [...] But Cabala and Theosophy are
thoroughly Jewish, as it may readily seen from their more modern
presentations which renders the philosophy as a whole obvious
and applicable. Were it not so, its hold upon thousands of Jewish
minds would be an enigma defying all process of reasoning. We
recognize the Cabala and all pertaining to Theosophy as Twin
sisters. We see all the ethics and wisdom of Theosophy interlaced
with the highest aim of Cabala, both being the effort to make
metaphysics subservient to the Brotherhood of men (Blumenfeld
1927: 3).
A similar perception of Kabbalah is found in the writing of Elias
Gewurtz, who claimed that the Qabbalistic writings were “proved by
the greatest scholars to antedate the most ancient teachings of the East
[...] Primitive humanity was not deprived of teachers, and to our earliest
ancestors the doctrine of Unity was proclaimed.” Like Blumenfeld, he
also asserted: “What was once known to the few as the holy Qabalah
is now proclaimed far and wide as Theosophy. It is all the same
teaching and emanates from the same source” (Gewurtz 1924: 25).
The essential identity between Jewish Kabbalah and the teachings of
Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society was proclaimed by Bosman
in the passage quoted at the beginning of this article as well as by A.
D. Ezekiel: “These doctrines promulgated by the Theosophical Society
are identical with those taught by the kabbalists of our race; there is
the same rule of life, the same goal to reach (Ezekiel 1887a: 601).
This emphasis on the importance of Jewish Kabbalah in the history
of the universal secret doctrine, and the assertion that Jewish Kabbalah

153
 Boaz Huss

was essentially identical with the teachings of the modern theosophists

enabled Jewish theosophists to take part in the Theosophical Society
and adopt its principals without abandoning their Jewish identity and
Jewish national sentiments. The importance of Kabbalah in Theosophy
helped to augment their standing within the Society. As we have seen,
Jewish theosophists claimed to be experts in Kabbalah, and were
perceived as such by other theosophists. This came to the fore in a
message sent by Annie Besant to the Hebrew Theosophists, in which
she congratulated them for enriching Theosophy with the wisdom of
their “occult treatises:”
It is a great happiness to me to see members of the great Hebrew
race enriching Theosophy with contributions from their ancient
Faith. Much wisdom is enshrined in their occult treatises, and
European philosophy and metaphysics own much to the subtle
genius of the Hebrew Nation. Great have been its sufferings in
the past, but the greater still will be its gifts in the future to the
human race (Besant 1926: 4).
The adaptation of Kabbalah by Jewish theosophists was inspired by
their commitment to the doctrines and values of the Theosophical
Society, and by their aspiration to show that kabbalistic doctrines were
identical to theosophical teaching. Hence, they emphasized kabbalistic
themes that were close to Theosophy (such as reincarnation, the divine
origin of the human soul, etc.) and ignored Jewish kabbalistic notions
that were incompatible with Theosophy (such as the theurgic import of
the Jewish commandments, the unique status of Jewish souls, etc.).
Such a theosophical reading of Kabbalah came to the fore in Elias
Gewurtz’s article “Qabbalah” and in his booklet, Beautiful Thoughts
of the Ancient Hebrews. The three prominent kabbalistic doctrines he
enumerated were very close to central theosophical teachings, and his
claim that Kabbalah is non-dogmatic and universalistic reflected the
ideals of the Society:
The principal textbook of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, contains a
great variety of teachings on the inner life, the most prominent
among them are the three doctrines of the Unity of God and the
universe, the Law of Cause and Effect, and the Law of Spiritual
Evolution by means of rebirth [...] The immortal merit of the

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Kabbalistic writings is their freedom from dogma and from all

sorts of limitations in regard to race, creed or color (Gewurtz
1914: 168-170; 1924: 21-26).
In the framework of their theosophically inspired interpretation of
Kabbalah, Jewish theosophists adopted and developed the idea that
Kabbalah, representing the spiritual and mystical aspect of Judaism,
could be separated from, and even opposed, the legalistic aspects of
Talmudic Judaism. Following Christian and Western esoteric
perceptions, many Jewish theosophists disparaged the Talmud and
Jewish halacha (the Jewish legal tradition) as negative and unspiritual,
and valorized Kabbalah as the vital, spiritual, essence of Judaism.
Thus, for instance, Bozena Brydlova wrote in her article “the Ancient
Kabbalah:”
The Kabbala and its principles are applicable admirably to our
own times, much in contradistinction to the Talmud, which in
our Modern days seems dreadfully useless and unpractical with
its laws that were established to govern conditions which we
have long outgrown [...] The Kabbalah made a strong appeal to
the poor struggling creatures who were literally crawling along
in the mud of despair under the yoke of oppression and sect
tradition (Brydlova 1926: 28).
Similarly, Alex Horn claimed:
That the Kabbalists profoundly influenced Jewish life and thought,
there can be no doubt. They tried to draw religious life away
from the dry and meaningless repetition of acts and formulas;
they strove to inject religious devotion and true faith into
observances that were fast becoming perfunctory. It is the realities
of the spiritual life that they were after, and not its shadows and
illusions (Horn 1928: 22-23).
Jewish theosophists also aspired to revive Judaism in its theosophical
interpretation through the revival of Kabbalah and as part of a Jewish
spiritual and national revival. This came to the fore in the words of
Leonard Bosman:
Having found the Light, he (i.e., the author, Bosman), in company
with other Jewish Theosophists, is anxious to share it with his

155
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compatriots. Hence the new movement, founded within the

Theosophical Society, to revivify Judaism by seeking to bring
back to it the deeper truths so long overshadowed by materialistic
wanderings (Bosman 1926: 17).
Many other Jewish theosophists regarded their mission as bringing
about a kabbalistic and theosophically inspired spiritual reform of
Judaism. Alex Horn declared in his article, “Theosophy and Modern
Judaism:”
A Spiritual, Theosophical (taking the word in its widest and
most general sense) interpretation and re-evaluation is the one
thing that modern Judaism needs, and needs badly [...] Judaism
alone of the great world-religions had been left uncared for and
unattended. It is high time that the Theosophical spirit should be
made to manifest itself in our religion as well, not as something
new, not as something imposed from without, but as a resurrection
of the spirit that breathed through the finer mysticism of old. It
is time that Theosophically-minded Jews the world over banded
themselves together for service to their co-religionists, for the
purpose of bringing out the highest, the noblest, the most beautiful
and inspiring truths that Judaism has to offer, to the end that its
mission may be perpetuated and its purpose achieved (Horne
1926b: 106).
The Jewish theosophists believed they had a double mission: to increase
knowledge about Judaism, especially Kabbalah, amongst theosophists,
and to help Jews to better understand Judaism, through Theosophy. In
their appeal to members of the theosophical Society, the founders of
the AHT declared:
The Association proposes to bring to light all the hidden spiritual
riches of the Jewish Religion. A profound study of this last in
the light of Theosophy will undoubtedly lead to the increase of
Theosophical information in this field, while this study will help
the Jews to understand their own religion (Polak 1926: 103-104).
Although they did not state it explicitly, “the hidden spiritual riches of
the Jewish religion” surely refers to Kabbalah.

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Jewish Theosophy and Kabbalah scholarship

The Jewish theosophists’ perceptions and appropriations of Kabbalah
were part of a larger current of modern Jewish interest in Kabbalah.
Some of the basic assumptions of the Jewish theosophists concerning
the nature and significance of Kabbalah resemble and interconnect
with the perceptions of other modern Jewish intellectuals and scholars
of Kabbalah. From the late-nineteenth century, many Jewish intellectuals
in both Western and Eastern Europe reaffirmed the value of Kabbalah
and Hasidism, which were marginalized and disparaged by scholars of
the Jewish Enlightenment movement (The Haskala). The positive re-
evaluation of the Kabbalah took place within the framework of neo-
Romanticism and an Orientalist fascination with the “mystical East,”
as well as the emergence of Jewish nationalism (Mendes-Flohr 1991:
77-132). Jewish intellectuals in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth
centuries often combined interest in mysticism and the occult with
their zionist ideology (Huss 2006: 212-219). In this framework, Jewish
scholars, such as Hillel Zeitlin, Shmuel Abba Horodezky, and Martin
Buber turned to the study of Kabbalah and Hasidism. Following these
scholars, Gershom Scholem and his disciples established modern
academic research on Kabbalah.
Late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century Jewish scholars of
Kabbalah shared many of the major conceptions of the Jewish
theosophists concerning the meaning and significance of the Kabbalah.
Most of the Jewish theosophists and many of the modern scholars of
Kabbalah came from an “enlightened” cultural background in which
Kabbalah was marginalized and disparaged. Yet, they developed great
interest in Kabbalah and valorized it as a highly significant component
of Jewish culture. Both Jewish theosophists and Jewish scholars of
Kabbalah adopted a universalistic interpretation of Kabbalah, which
identified it as an expression of a universal mystical phenomenon.
Indeed, the identification of Kabbalah as “Jewish mysticism”—which
appeared for the first time during the nineteenth century—became
central for Jewish Theosophists as well as for modern Jewish scholars
of Kabbalah and Hassidism.

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As we saw, Jewish theosophists, as well as other Jewish scholars of

the period, emphasized the important and vitalizing role of Jewish
mysticism in Jewish history and culture, often juxtaposing it with the
“stagnation” of Talmudic, legalistic Judaism. To give another example,
Joshua Abelson stated in the introduction to the English translation of
the Zohar: “The arid field of Rabbinism was always kept well watered
and fresh by the living streams of Cabbalistic lore” (Abelson 1931:
xiv). The founders of the modern academic study of Jewish mysticism
held similar notions. In his 1906 essay on Jewish mysticism, Martin
Buber stated that the power of Jewish mysticism was derived from the
basic characteristics of the people who created it as well as from the
historical vicissitudes of Jewish history (Buber 1956: 5). Buber claimed
that Hasidism, which he perceived as the final and most advanced
stage of Jewish mysticism, was a religious renewal movement that
liberated the people from the dominance of Talmudic Law:
The proclamation of joy in God, after a thousand years of a
dominance of law that was poor in joy and hostile to it, acted
like a liberation [...] the people up till then had acknowledged
above them an aristocracy of Talmud scholars, alienated from
life [...] now the people, by a single blow, were liberated from
this aristocracy (Buber 1956: 15).
Similarly, Gershom Scholem declared that Kabbalah, which he
juxtaposed with halacha, was the vital force that enabled the national
existence of Judaism in exile:
I wanted to enter into the world of the Kabbalah via my thinking
and belief in Zionism as a living thing, as the renewal of a
people who had greatly degenerated [...] I was interested in the
question: did the Judaism of halakhah have sufficient strength to
persist and to exist? Was halakhah really possible without a
mystical basis? Does it have a vitality of its own to persist
without degeneration over a period of thousands of years?
(Scholem 1976: 26-27).
Notwithstanding the similar perspectives of scholars of Jewish mysticism
and Jewish theosophists with regard to the nature and significance of
Kabbalah, Scholem disparaged theosophists (Jews and non-Jews alike),

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 Jewish Theosophists and their Perceptions of Kabbalah

as well as other occultists with an interest in Kabbalah. This was

especially because of their limited knowledge of primary texts, and
their lack of academic rigor (Huss, 2007b: 92-94; Burmistrov 2006).
Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that Scholem chose the term
“theosophy” as the most appropriate one to describe Kabbalah:
If I were asked to characterize in one word the essential traits of
this world of Kabbalistic thought [...] I would say that the Zohar
represents Jewish theosophy, i.e. a Jewish form of theosophy
[...]By theosophy I mean that which was generally meant before
the term became a label for a modern pseudo-religion (Scholem
1961: 205-206).
In case it was not sufficiently clear to what Scholem was referring
when he mentioned a “modern pseudo-religion” (a term taken from
René Guénon’s 1921 work, Le Théosophisme: Histoire d’une Pseudo-
Religion), Scholem added a note in which he discussed the possible
connection between Blavatsky’s Book of Dzyan and the Siphra Dezniuta
of the Zohar:
The first to advance this theory, without further proof, was L. A.
Bosman, a Jewish Theosophist, in his booklet, The Mysteries of
the Qabbalah. This seems to me the true “etymology” of the
hitherto unexplained title [...] This “bibliographical” connection
between the fundamental writings of modern and of Jewish
Theosophy seems remarkable enough (Scholem 1961: 398).
Notwithstanding his disparagement of the Theosophical Society,
Scholem’s understanding of the meaning of Theosophy, and of Kabbalah
as Jewish Theosophy, is not that far from the theosophists’ understanding
of the term:
Theosophy signifies a mystical doctrine, or school of thought,
which purports to perceive and to describe the mysterious working
of the Divinity. [...] Theosophy postulates a kind of divine
emanation whereby God, abandoning his self-contained repose,
awakens to mysterious life [...] (Scholem 1961: 206).
I do not claim that the modern scholarly definition of Kabbalah as
“Jewish theosophy” was derived from the Theosophical Society.
Kabbalah had been described as theosophy since the early-eighteenth

159
 Boaz Huss

century, and possibly, it was this association between Kabbalah and

theosophy that influenced the founders of the Theosophical Society in
their choice of term.4 Nevertheless, the shared use of the term, theosophy,
in both the academic study of Kabbalah and in the Theosophical Society
is significant. It highlights the shared context and the connections
between modern Jewish scholars of Kabbalah and Jewish followers of
Theosophy. Paraphrasing Scholem’s observation concerning the
possible connection between Siphra Dezniuta and the Book of Dzyan,
the similarity in perspective of Jewish Kabbalah scholars and Jewish
theosophists seems remarkable enough.

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