Jonatan Meir, Kabbalistic Circles in Jerusalem (1896–1948), trans. Avi Aronsky. Leiden: Brill, 2016. 269 pp.

This chapter reviews the book Kabbalistic Circles in Jerusalem (1896–1948) (2016), by Jonatan Meir, translated by Avi Aronsky. In Kabbalistic Circles in Jerusalem, Meir focuses on the proliferation of Sharabian yeshivot and shows that it represented a critical move toward exotericism within what was previously one of the most esoteric branches of modern Kabbalah. He highlights the institutional, economic, and cultural factors underlying this phenomenon—the last pertaining to the competing claims of ethnic groups such as the Baghdadis, Bukharins, and immigrants from Aleppo (Halabis). Meir explores these changes in the context of the literary and political life of pre-state Jerusalem to demonstrate how the Sharabian seminaries became a potent factor in the life of the city.