Tamar Frankiel

Historian, inspirational teacher, cultural commentator, and now a novelist! -- Tamar Frankiel has been writing professionally for more than four decades. She began as an academic in historical studies, mostly American religious history. About a dozen years later, she began writing about some of the misunderstandings in Jewish tradition concerning women's spirituality. That trajectory led to inspirational articles and books on Jewish mysticism, prayer, and dreams. At that time (the early 2000s), she was teaching courses on those subjects at the Academy for Jewish Religion California, where she also was involved in interfaith work, became a Dean, and served a few years as President of the seminary.

The decision to write fiction was a major shift in Tamar's life as a writer. In her academic days, she seldom read fiction! Yet her work with dreams and mystical teachings kept her in touch with what some mystics call the "imaginal" realm, that space between supra-consciousness and ordinary waking life that nourishes poets, artists, and dreamers of all kinds. And she wanted to write about areas that interested her where she was not an academic specialist. For a while she tried blogging, but it wasn't her style.

A serendipitous course of events - beginning with her daughter unexpectedly moving to Cincinnati - brought her back to her native Ohio. In helping the family find places to go for excursions, Tamar recalled that she had once visited Serpent Mound as a young child. As it turned out, recent decades of archeology had unearthed lots of new information about the Ohio mounds -- the Adena-Hopewell culture as it is called. Tamar dived into the research and began visiting the sites. A friend encouraged her to put her imagination to work on a novel. She read lots of novels too, and in the process discovered a few writers that truly inspired her. (Top of the list: Edith Pargeter aka Ellis Peters; and Hilary Mantel, both British.) The happy result was her first fiction: EARTH ISLAND RISING, a story of intrigue and deception as well as a "mound" of information on the ancient Ohio Native cultures.

Another inspiration came when Tamar was reading recent scholarship on one of her favorite historical subjects, the period when Christianity split from Judaism (2nd century CE). She wasn't a specialist in this either, but she knew she could do the research for a novel. The result was PERHAPS FOR THIS MOMENT; A NOVEL, the first fictional treatment of Jewish history and culture in the period after the disastrous Bar Kochba war in Israel. The story revolves around a family who had to flee for their lives from the Roman armies and landed in a city in what is now Turkey, confronting them with the decision whether to stay safely in "exile," or return to the devastated homeland. For Jews, was it really "safe" to live among pagans -- and also the rising Christian religion going through its own growth pains? This book breaks new ground in Jewish fiction by delving into the period after the war (rather than during or before). Also, the protagonist is a Jewish woman!

Strangely, these two novels are anchored in the same historical period - the Hopewell mounds are mostly from the first three centuries C.E., and the transformation of Jewish culture into "rabbinic Judaism" took place then also. Eight thousand miles apart in space, and worlds apart in culture. Odd, nonetheless.

Recently Tamar returned to an unfinished historical project, a study of early 20th-century California focusing on Anglo women who were interested in the condition of First Nations peoples (then called Indians or Natives). Tamar's lively historical study, NATURAL SYMPATHIES: ANGLO WOMEN AND NATIVE AMERICANS, 1890-1930, which illuminates many issues that still are of concern today.

Tamar also works closely with Connie Kaplan, her first "dream teacher" and an original teacher of spiritual illumination (see for example, https://www.theinvisiblegarment.com). Tamar's work involves leading dream groups and mentoring students in spiritual studies. She teaches Torah and Jewish history in the Jewish community as well. In between, she and her husband travel near and far to visit their five children and fourteen grandchildren.