Thesiss

Today there are over 70,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel, many of whom immigrated in two mass movements in the mid 1980's and early 1990's. Among the many cultural practices they brought with them is a spirit possession complex called zar. Zar centers around a class of invisi…

This study is about zar spirit possession as practiced in Cairo, mostly by Muslim women. The research is based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork. The word zar has two meanings. It refers to a number of spirits which have the capacity to afflict humans with physical and psyc…