The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women's Spiritual Leadership, by Jill Hammer and Taya Shere. 

The Hebrew Priestess carefully excavates the forgotten roles of women as Jewish spiritual leaders from the millennia before women began receiving rabbinic ordination in the 1970s. Building upon the past, so richly presented in The Hebrew Priestess, the authors offer up uniquely feminine forms of spiritual leadership for our time.

From before the days of Miriam the Prophetess and Deborah the Judge, Jewish women have offered their talents as religious leaders. The Hebrew Priestess tells their stories, often reading between the lines of the Bible and Talmud to rediscover the women that rabbinic editors downplayed and perhaps even tried to erase.

Rabbi Jill Hammer brings vast erudition to this book as well as unique personal experience. She is co-founder, with co-author Taya Shere, of the Kohenet Institute, which trains Jewish women as Hebrew priestesses. Hammer and Shere believe that the spiritual gifts of Jewish women will only be incorporated into Judaism when women explore the Divine through their own lens. The Kohenet Institute offers an embodied, ecstatic, earth-based approach to Jewish spiritual practice and leadership.

The Hebrew Priestess weaves a careful examination of historical antecedents of these new priestesses with the personal experiences of women who embarked on this new path of Jewish priestesshood.

The Hebrew Priestess delineates 13 models of spiritual leadership (among them prophetess, weaver, drummer, shrinekeeper, midwife, mother, maiden, witch, and fool) and shows how each model of women’s leadership was manifest in ancient times and throughout Jewish history, and how women in our day are following that path. Finally, it shows how each model can be incorporated into one’s own spiritual life.

Ambitious, learned, practical, and deeply personal, The Hebrew Priestess offers a strong feminist connection to Jewish history and to a personal experience of the sacred.

Kaddish: Women's Voices, by Michal Smart and Barbara Ashkenas. 

For centuries, Jews have turned to the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer upon experiencing a loss. This groundbreaking book explores what the recitation of Kaddish has meant specifically to women. Did they find the consolation, closure, and community they were seeking? How did saying Kaddish affect their relationships with God, with prayer, with the deceased, and with the living? With courage and generosity, 52 authors from around the world reflect upon their experiences of mourning. They share their relationships with the family members they lost and what it meant to move on; how they struggled to balance the competing demands of child rearing, work, and grief; what they learned about tradition and themselves; and the disappointments and particular challenges they confronted as women. The collection shares viewpoints from diverse perspectives and backgrounds and examines what it means to heal from loss and to honor memory in family relationships, both loving and fraught with pain. It is a precious record of women searching for their place within Jewish tradition and exploring the connections that make human life worthwhile. 

Winner of the 2013 National Jewish Book Award.

Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles, by Rivvy Neshama. 

From dancing to forgiving, from walking at dawn to sharing dinner with a stranger, Rivvy Neshama invites us to find the sacred--in unexpected places and everyday life. These short true tales are magical yet down to earth and filled with heart and humor, connecting us more deeply with love, joy, and purpose

In the spirit of Anne Lamott, Mitch Albom, and Rachel Naomi Remen, Recipes for a Sacred Life is luminous and uplifting--a gift for all.

Bible Women, by Elizabeth Swados. (AUDIO CD)

Bible Women is a contemporary song cycle by Tony nominated composer Elizabeth Swados. Swados writes, "The women represented in Bible Women are names the audience recognizes, but most have probably forgotten the narrative behind the name. I picked women who, it seemed to me, had a universality in their battles, sorrows, victories and contemplations...If I had to categorize the "style" of this piece I would have to say it is a strongly vocal oriented sound strongly influenced by world music, jazz, gospel and pop. Although the interpretation of these characters is rooted in Jewish storytelling, I intended to create a circle of women whose words and attitudes could also be secular as well as spiritual, feisty, lost, curious and intelligent."

Women and Spirituality: The Goddess Trilogy (DVD)

Women and Spirituality is Donna Read's definitive series that explores the power of the sacred feminine in mythological, historical and cultural contexts. This trilogy investigates the relationship between women and spirituality from ancient times to the present.

Goddess Remembered - Part 1 - This poetic documentary is a salute to 35 000 years of "pre-history," to the values of ancestors only recently remembered, and to the goddess-worshipping religions of the ancient past. Goddess Remembered features Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Luisah Teish, Starhawk, Charlene Spretnak, and Jean Bolen, who link the loss of goddess-centred societies with today's environmental crisis. They propose a return to the belief in an interconnected life system, with respect for the earth and the female, as fundamental to our survival.

Burning Times - Part 2 - This beautifully crafted film is an in-depth look at the witch-hunts that swept through Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake, and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film advances the theory that widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times.

Full Circle - Part 3 - In this stirring documentary, authors, teachers, social activists and feminists explore manifestations of contemporary women’s spirituality in the Western world. Drawing on the customs, rites and knowledge of the past, Full Circle envisions a sustainable future where domination is replaced with respect. At the centre of these discussions is a reverence for the Earth, a sacred circle which we must protect.