Ayin Press – förlag

A profound, playful, and kaleidoscopic collection from one of our most evocative contemporary philosopher-poets.A posthumanist polymath and "trans-public" intellectual, Báyò Akómoláfé has produced a vast body of work that represents a startling picture of the world in perpetual process and radical relation. Through an ever-growing archive of books, articles, interviews, films, social media posts, workshops, and rituals, Akómoláfé seeks to interrogate the fundamental assumptions and epistemological blind spots of our current culture in crisis.Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader presents a poetically arranged selection of Akómoláfés short-form writings, which draw inspiration from Édouard Glissant; Gilles Deleuze; Gregory Bateson; Octavia Butler; Fernand Deligny; Chinua Achebe; the adventures of Esu, the Yoruba monster-trickster and crossroads figure; and more.  A tightly curated composition of aphorisms, anti-epiphanies, prose poems, and philosophical fragments, Selah invites readers into the thicket of Akómoláfé’s thought, weaving together threads of his most critically creative concepts—such as ontofugitivity, ecocognitive assemblage theory, parapolitics, and postactivism. Taking its title from an enigmatic Hebrew word that appears throughout the Book of Psalms—one that suggests a moment of ecstatic exclamation or musical notation—Selah is a book that can be read in an hour or studied for years, kept by your bedside or passed among friends like an open secret. For those already swimming in the depths of Akómoláfé’s language, as well as those encountering his dynamic body of work for the first time, Selah offers an accessible and ecstatic entry into a visionary thinker’s signature thought and poetics.Selah is the second title from Aora Books, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring transformational thought and culture that transcends borders, disciplines, and traditions. Rooted in an ethos of polyvocality and planetary consciousness, Aora publishes works that forge bold connections across time, place, ideas, and beings often seen as separate.

A beautiful Tarot deck and booklet revealing the lost and forgotten Jewish origins of the Tarot—featuring a foreword by poet Ariana Reines.For hundreds of years, the original meaning of the Tarot de Marseille, the artistic ancestor of the contemporary Tarot, has been a source of mystery, speculation, and debate. When Torah student Stav Appel encountered the Jean Noblet Tarot—one of the oldest preserved decks in the tradition of the Tarot de Marseille—he found something curious: the Magician held his arms in the shape of the Hebrew letter aleph א, the Hermit wore a Jewish prayer shawl, and three pieces of matzah hid beneath the Moon. In The Torah in the Tarot, Appel carefully analyzes the Noblet Tarot, uncovering a rich array of Jewish symbols ingeniously concealed in its images. Given the deck’s origin circa 1650, during the Catholic Church’s centuries-long campaign to eradicate Judaism, Appel argues persuasively that its secret content suggests it originally served as a tool for clandestine Jewish education. Writing in a rich style that draws on rabbinic literary forms, Appel has presented a landmark contribution to the field of Tarot studies—revealing that when we perceive the Tarot through a Jewish lens, we can, at long last, recognize the Torah hidden in the Tarot.The Torah in the Tarot includes a booklet written by Stav Appel with a foreword by Ariana Reines, as well as a historically accurate, 78-card color reproduction of the Jean Noblet Tarot—the only modern copy that preserves the full scope of the deck’s original Judaica—created by the French artist Florent Giraud of Tarotgraphe.

Ancient wisdom meets radical justice in this powerful reimagining of the Jewish path of teshuvah.The Path of Repair is a bold spiritual and ethical roadmap for personal and collective transformation. Rooted in ancient Jewish wisdom and illuminated by contemporary practices of mindfulness and abolitionist theology, this book invites readers into the heart of what it means to be human: the capacity to confront harm, cultivate forgiveness, and commit to lasting repair.Drawing on the teachings of medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari offers a profound reinterpretation of teshuvah—commonly translated as “repentance”—as a lifelong journey of healing, accountability, and liberation. With clarity and compassion, Fornari weaves together two decades of meditation practice with the urgency of justice work, revealing teshuvah not as a private spiritual exercise, but as a public act of courage and connection.In a world fractured by violence, inequality, and disconnection, The Path of Repair speaks directly to our deepest longings for change. This book is not only a guide—it is an invitation to reclaim our moral imagination and participate in the ongoing work of transformation, both within ourselves and in the world around us.

A wise and energizing book of poems suffused with music, mysticism, tenderness, and wit.Eden Pearlstein’s Nothing Is for Everyone is a manifesto of the unmanifest. Deeply, devotedly hybrid in influence and expression, this wild collection of poetry draws on rabbinic linguistics and kabbalistic meditation, free jazz and hip-hop, Marcel Duchamp and the Magid of Mezritch—all to reveal the permutational quality of language itself: its instability, resistance to containment, and divine fault lines. In these times when answers are plentiful and questions impoverished, Pearlstein’s insistence on the materiality of nothingness reveals that in fact nothing really matters. Nothing Is for Everyone was published by Deuteronomy Press and is distributed by Ayin Press (via Publishers Group West).

A colorful and imaginative retelling of a classic parable from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.When a powerful King banishes his beloved daughter, the entire kingdom is turned upside down. Sensing the King’s deep regret, the Viceroy of the kingdom takes it upon himself to search for the Lost Princess, and reunite the royal family. The ensuing quest takes many mysterious twists and turns, revealing the infinite—and often hidden—potential of yearning, forgiveness, and imagination. With Jessica Tamar Deutsch’s poetic retelling and stunning visual interpretation of Rebbe Nachman’s classic tale, readers of all ages can join the Viceroy on an adventure of transformation and renewal.

A groundbreaking work on spirituality and creativity.The Place of All Possibility is a paradigm-shifting work that reframes the whole of Torah as a contemporary guidebook for creativity. Drawing from the deep well of Jewish sacred texts and the radical interpretive strategies of ancient rabbis, The Place of All Possibility provides teachings and tools for those who seek to employ creativity as a force of transformation.Putting spiritual wisdom in conversation with the contemporary disciplines of art therapy, liberation theology, and creativity research, this essential book invites us all to rediscover our place in a world of mutual thriving. Packed with practical exercises to inspire your creative practice, The Place of All Possibility is for all people—from any tradition or none—who want to seed a world of imagination, abundance, and joy.

"This is a living and essential book." —sam sax, author of Bury It and MadnessA meditation on historical rupture and political imagination, A Flag of No Nation traces the stories of Turkish Jews in the twentieth century, navigating the tides of antisemitism, Turkish nationalism, Zionism, and the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire. Through forms of storytelling that range from allegory to oral history, Tom Haviv investigates the history of Israel|Palestine and the mythologies of nationalism, searching the archives for rituals and frames that might one day shape new realities of peace and justice. A warning against imperfect dreams, A Flag of No Nation reminds us how the act of remembrance can help us re-envision the future.A Flag of No Nation was previously published by Jewish Currents Press.

The story of four women who set out to uncover the secret origins of an intricate, magical city—and to change its fate. “Jill Hammer’s first fantasy novel offers beautifully detailed worldbuilding and, like Le Guin’s work, is underpinned by themes of gender, sexuality, prejudice, and politics.” —Zoe L. Tongue, Ancillary Review of BooksIstehar Sha'an, whose unique powers allow her to communicate with trees and books, has led her community of refugee forest people to a remarkable place. In the archipelago-city of Moonstone, the Sha'an people find themselves in an extraordinary, multicultural metropolis that houses the Library: the world's all-encompassing repository of wisdom.But in their search for a new home, the refugees soon garner the suspicion of Moonstone's locals, who forbid their magical practices. And when a hostile prince makes a bid to inherit the city's rule from his father, Istehar and her people realize they may be faced with exile—or worse.Meanwhile, Istehar has married three wives of Moonstone—a brave warrior librarian, a subtle-minded former concubine, and a tenacious apothecary who has spent years trying to solve her parents' murder. Driven by magical intuition and guided by a mysterious book, Istehar and her wives embark on a journey that will transform not only their lives, but the city of Moonstone itself.Readers of Ursula K. Le Guin and Guy Gavriel Kay will delight in The Moonstone Covenant's richly imagined world of mysterious archives, bookboats, and divinations—and its tales of both betrayal and healing.

“Aurora Levins Morales's poetry radiates wisdom, warmth, and fortitude. A prophetic, life-centered guide for times of tumult and struggle.” —Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents Rimonim is a richly woven tapestry of poetry meant for use. From a time of rupture and uncertainty, beloved movement poet Aurora Levins Morales brings us a prayer book for the street, for reconstituting the future through our gestures in the present. In these poems of devotion and protest, Levins Morales speaks across and through time with an undeniably prophetic voice. Written in collaboration with various communities looking to honor, unravel, and rebuild Jewish liturgies, Rimonim is a book of lyric in the most immediate sense—of poems that are meant to be read and sung. Rooted in tradition and flowering in the tumultuous present, these poems will both accompany specific Jewish practices and offer inspiration for the sacred work of human liberation, where joy meets justice. Ultimately, these forty-nine poems honor the forty-ninth year, when it was taught that everything in the land would begin anew, everything redistributed and freed, when the people would see that everything on this earth was “ready to wake and bloom / just under the skin of what is.”

An exploratory, mystical, and feminist companion for the traditional Jewish practice of counting the Omer.The Omer Calendar of Biblical Women is a meditative guidebook for counting the Omer, the forty-nine days between Passover and Shavout. According to the kabbalah, each of these forty-nine days embodies a unique combination of divine attributes, or sefirot. In this calendar, each sefirah is paired with the story of a woman from the Bible who embodies the unique spiritual dimension associated with the day. Illuminated by vibrant midrashic illustrations—both classical and contemporary—the Omer Calendar of Biblical Women provides a beautiful companion for the ritual of counting the Omer, and an essential addition to any library of Jewish feminist literature.

An urgent, poetic exploration of power, memory, belief, and the dangers and possibilities of language. PROTOCOLS: An Erasure transforms the world’s most influential antisemitic document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, into an erasure poem exploring essential questions of power, history, and language. By redacting words from the original document, Molnar created a book-length poem that breathes space and light into a text dense with hatred. She patiently uncovers the questions buried within the source text: What is the true nature of power, and how is it tied to a fear of the unknown? How can language, weaponized and eroded, also be a tool for healing? And how can silence help us reckon with history and shape the future? Accompanying the poem, a lyric essay excavates the poet’s deep personal connection to the source text, weaving personal and collective history by traversing former concentration camps, immigrant communities in New York City, and remote desert wildernesses, and posing new possibilities for a less deterministic, more spacious and peaceful world.

An ambitious, world-envisioning work of Indigenous futurism.Since 2015—through a proliferation of forms including sculpture, regalia, film, photography, poetry, painting, and installation—acclaimed multimedia artist Cannupa Hanska Luger has been weaving together strands of a new myth. Collectively referred to as Future Ancestral Technologies, this sprawling series of interrelated works seeks to reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population.Part graphic novel, part art book, SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide offers readers a view beneath, beyond, and between the lines of Luger's ever-expanding artistic universe. In this ecstatically hybrid work, Luger transforms a 1970s military survival guide through poetic redaction, speculative fiction, and iterative line drawing—deftly surfacing and disrupting the colonial subconscious that haunts this vexed source text. An epic and timely meditation on planetary life in the midst of transformation, SURVIVA boldly presents an earth-based, demilitarized futuredream that foregrounds Indigenous knowledge as critical to humanity’s survival.SURVIVA is the first title from Aora Books, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring transformational thought and culture that transcends borders, disciplines, and traditions. Rooted in an ethos of polyvocality and planetary consciousness, Aora publishes works that forge bold connections across time, place, ideas, and beings often seen as separate.

The 50th anniversary edition of a paradigm-shifting work by one of the most important Jewish figures in postwar America.By the time of his death, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (1924–2014), also known as Reb Zalman, had transformed the landscape of Judaism in America. The son of liberal Hasidic Jews, a Holocaust refugee, and a devoted Lubavitcher Hasid, Reb Zalman eventually left the traditional Hasidic fold and committed himself to seeding a mystical Jewish renaissance. An active participant in the counterculture and New Age movements, Reb Zalman began experimenting with different forms of Jewish ritual and contemplative practice—and their intersection with other spiritual traditions—ultimately founding the Jewish Renewal movement.Fragments of a Future Scroll, Reb Zalman's first book, was originally published by a small press in 1975 and, until now, was long out of print. A truly unique book—or "anti-book," as Shaul Magid refers to it in his new introductory essay—Fragments gathers Reb Zalman's first idiosyncratic attempts at articulating a renewed "Hasidism for the Aquarian Age," envisioning Judaism's evolving place and role within an emergent "planetary consciousness." This wild text presents an electrifying weave of sparks, flashes, stories, teachings, and ecstatically lyrical translations of traditional Jewish sources—"spiritual sheet music," as Reb Zalman called it. Full of boundary-breaking wisdom and crackling poetic oddity, Fragments of a Future Scroll is a book for people from all religious and spiritual traditions who are looking to experience the world—and consciousness itself—anew.This historic 50th anniversary edition presents an updated version of the original text, alongside essays by four contemporary Jewish thinkers—Rabbi Shaul Magid, Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Rav Jericho Vincent, and Arthur Kurzweil—reflecting on Reb Zalman's enormous impact, and guiding contemporary readers into his paradigm-shifting worldview.

A whimsical and warmhearted picture book about displacement, belonging, and the magic of a shared meal.Deep underground, a tight-knit Yiddish-speaking family lives inside a great garlic bulb: they sleep on garlic cloves, bathe in garlic juice, and wear garlic peels for clothes. But after a very hungry mole tears through their roof, the Garlic Eaters are forced aboveground into a world that isn’t sure what to make of them.Rooted in Jewish experiences of diaspora, The Garlic Eaters is a children’s story about what it’s like to find a new home, and how a special ingredient can make all the difference. Garlic has long carried meaning in Jewish kitchens and folk traditions, whether tucked into pockets, hung on doors, or shared with neighbors. Author and illustrator Madison Safer weaves this history into a tale of imagination and tenderness, introducing young readers to the universal experience of starting over somewhere new—and finding, against all odds, a community to call your own.The Garlic Eaters includes an author’s note on the Jewish diaspora, a glossary of Yiddish terms, and a recipe for the Garlic Eaters’ favorite soup to enjoy with the whole family.Reboot Studios is a Presenting Partner on The Garlic Eaters, supporting its development, release, and educational impact.The Garlic Eaters is a new title from Somewhere, a publishing imprint dedicated to children’s books, art books, comics, zines, and other graphic and illustrated works.

A luminous story about loss, creativity, and growing up.In this lyrical fable, one morning the sun mysteriously fails to rise, leaving a small town in darkness—and the children without their parents. Undeterred, they wander through the  surreal Nighttime City, alive with neon-lit zoos, mysterious bakeries, and strange creatures, searching for the adults who have vanished.As their anxiety deepens, a brave girl proposes an audacious idea: if they cannot find the sun, perhaps they must raise it into the sky themselves. But how? To find out, the children set to work —and begin to craft a new dawn.A story of wonder and resilience, How the Sun Was Won explores grief, mystery, and the power of collective imagination.

A revolutionary re-visioning of the Hebrew Bible that breaks the locks of a sealed canon—regendering biblical theology, narrative, and law.Toratah, which means “Her Torah” in Hebrew, reimagines the Hebrew Bible by reversing the gender of all its figures—transforming patriarchs into matriarchs, matriarchs into patriarchs, and reshaping millennia-old narratives. Jehovah becomes Tehovah, Cain becomes Kina, and Noah becomes Nokha. By defamiliarizing these ancient stories, Toratah opens up new ways of understanding hierarchy, gender, and power, and presents a new horizon for spiritual imagination.Toratah is a vital contribution to biblical literature, reclaiming sacred ground long denied to women. By regendering the sacred text—and even the Divine itself—Toratah places women at the center to create a more expansive canon: one  that introduces new models for both women and men, granting them forms of agency previously unavailable in biblical scripture. The project has already inspired a vibrant community online, leading to new curricula, rituals, and artworks that explore the dynamic interplay between Toratah and Torato (“His Torah,” or what’s known as the traditional Hebrew Bible). The first of a series, this print edition of Toratah includes the first six chapters of Genesis, featuring the Hebrew, its English translation, rich commentary and midrash, and pedagogic prompts designed to engage readers across generations.The careful design of this volume creates a dialogue between the conventional layout of Hebrew sacred texts and contemporary aesthetics, presenting a book that is simultaneously old and new, traditional and innovative.

An electric collection of essays and poems by America’s most prominent feminist Jewish poet and critic.What does a post-secular poetics look like? How might feminist midrash, irreverent play, and renewed engagement with spiritual lineages reshape the way we read? In this bold and wide-ranging collection, Alicia Ostriker—author of the groundbreaking Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women’s Poetry in America—grapples with these questions. With incisive and lyrical force, she wrestles with patriarchy without discarding its canons: reimagining biblical women as activists and tricksters, rethinking the face of the biblical Other, and helping to restore the divine feminine to Jewish consciousness.Alongside her own midrashic interventions, Ostriker explores the work of poets from multiple traditions—like Muriel Rukeyser, Emily Dickinson, Lucille Clifton, Gerald Stern, Paul Celan, and Mohja Kahf—who insist on engaging inherited texts while refusing to bow to them. What emerges in this vibrant collection is part literary criticism, part poetic manifesto, part spiritual testimony, and an irresistible invitation to shape a renewed spiritual imagination. Drawing its title from a rabbinic directive to study Torah over and over, Turn It & Turn It invites readers into a space where tradition and transformation meet—where the secular and the sacred are entangled, and new paths of meaning emerge.

A transformative and heart-opening collection of incantations, drawn from the ancient Jewish practice of manifesting through speech.Speak to the Bones invites readers of all backgrounds into the wondrous and ever-evolving world of Jewish mysticism. With forty spells and commentaries on topics such as love, anxiety, and heartbreak, Rabbi Jericho Vincent and Rabbi Zvika Krieger journey through millennia of Jewish history — from ancient Mesopotamian incantation bowls and medieval liturgy to the oral traditions of Sephardi and Ashkenazi women.Rooted in Rabbi Vincent and Rabbi Krieger’s Orthodox and Kabbalistic lineages, and beautifully illustrated by Aya Rosen, Speak to the Bones reclaims and revives the ancient tradition of Jewish magic for all those yearning for agency and relief amidst the chaos of our present moment.“This is a radical book, intentionally so, revitalizing a formerly marginalized Jewish practice in the present, yet also fully rooted in a rich and fascinating magical past.”—Rabbi Jill Hammer

In A Field Guide to the Jewish Otherworld, author Jill Hammer leads readers on an enchanting journey through the Jewish spirit realms, introducing us to magical beings like angels and demons, house spirits and spirits of the wild,  ghosts and dybbuks, mythological creatures and ancestral presences. These beings—found in the Bible, the Talmud, modern folktales, medieval spell books, and beyond—each have histories and traditions, and they have gifts to share with the reader who dares approach. You’ll never see the world the same way after learning how every nook and cranny may hold an otherworldly creature—an angel on a mission, or a mischievous spirit about to cause trouble. The illustrations may feed your imagination, but ultimately, A Field Guide to the Jewish Otherworld will remind you that the citizens of the hidden realm are yours to discover.

Wherever You Are: Essays from East to West gathers the meditations of a writer caught between worlds—Palestinian by blood, American by circumstance, and by temperament a stranger to easy belonging. In these essays, Yahia Lababidi moves between high and low, sacred and mundane, resisting the comfort of choosing. He writes of Oscar Wilde and belly dancers, of Rumi and Ramadan television, of raising pigeons on a Florida balcony while the world burns in Gaza—composing a spiritual autobiography disguised as cultural criticism, in which attention becomes a kind of devotion and prayer. Through it all runs a single question: how to remain fully alive and human in a wounded world?These are essays in the truest sense, explorations that circle and return, admitting uncertainty while insisting on witness. Lababidi writes with the care of a poet and the conscience of a dissident. He does not offer answers so much as company: of thinkers, artists, and ordinary people who have refused to be diminished by their circumstances. A life of letters, he suggests, is a form of resistance. And in a time of noise and simplification, the whisper—tender and precise, scandalous with truth—may be the only honest response.This title will be released under Ayin’s sibling imprint Aora Books.

A radical and accessible introduction to the Ivri Way, a Jewish renaissance that is grounded in ancient wisdom, responsive to our current struggles, and alive to what comes next.American Judaism is at a crossroads. People are watching the institutions they once trusted crumble. They are longing for truth, for meaning, for what is truly eternal. The question running beneath this moment isn’t whether Judaism will survive, but which Judaism will shape our future.In Sacred Rebels, Rabbi Jericho Vincent—educator, activist, author, and founding rabbi of Temple of the Stranger—traces two paradigms running through all of Jewish history. The first, “Judaism of the King,” is a religious dynamic that promises safety in exchange for obedience. The second, far older and long suppressed, is “Judaism of the Stranger”—rooted in the ancestor Miriam, the ancient mandate to love the stranger, the erotic wisdom of the Song of Songs, and the Kabbalists’ vision of a God who lives within, between, and beyond all things. Through an innovative reimagining of seven core Jewish concepts, such as loving the stranger, pursuing sacred pleasure, and birthing liberatory consciousness, Vincent weaves stories, reflections, and accessible practices into a new vision for an embodied, inclusive, and threshold-crossing Judaism. At once an act of reclamation and rebellion, Sacred Rebels is an invitation for those of any background—Jewish, Jew-ish, or simply Jewishly curious—who sense that the old world is ending, and who are ready to midwife what’s next.

A tender, beautifully illustrated children's book about the magic of friendship and the joy of connection. The Porcupine Prince and his fellow porcupines share a problem: they are just too spiny to get close to each other. And when the Prince finally tries to tell his family how lonely he feels, they can’t quite seem to hear him. To find the closeness he craves, the Prince must journey beyond the orderly and familiar Porcupine Empire and into the wet, wandering wilderness, where an unlikely friendship with some slippery salamanders helps him to discover his soft side—and to share that softness with his prickly family. The Porcupine Prince is a surreal fable about the magic of friendship and the joy of connection.

A timely, progressive collection of essays on the Jewish relationship to Zionism and exile.What is exile? What is diaspora? What is Zionism? Jewish identity today has been shaped by prior generations’ answers to these questions, and the future of Jewish life will depend on how we respond to them in our own time. In The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, celebrated rabbi and scholar Shaul Magid offers an essential contribution to this intergenerational process, inviting us to rethink our current moment through religious and political resources from the Jewish tradition.On many levels, Zionism was conceived as an attempt to “end the exile” of the Jewish people, both politically and theologically. In a series of incisive essays, Magid challenges us to consider the price of diminishing or even erasing the exilic character of Jewish life. A thought-provoking work of political imagination, The Necessity of Exile reclaims exile as a positive stance for constructive Jewish engagement with Israel|Palestine, antisemitism, diaspora, and a broken world in need of repair.

A beautifully illustrated graphic novel—part introduction to the first ordained Ashkenazi woman rabbi, and part lyric memoir on the author’s experience as a religious feminist Jew.As a Burning Flame: The Dream of Regina Jonas is a graphic novel exploring the life and impact of the first female ordained rabbi in Ashkenazi Jewish history. Regina Jonas (1902–1944) was active in prewar Berlin and later in the Theresienstadt ghetto as a community leader, lecturer, and organizer, until her murder at Auschwitz. As a Burning Flame recounts Regina’s story through creatively woven fragments of her own writing and Noa Mishkin’s meditative and imaginative illustrations. The novel then turns to explore where Regina’s story intersects with Noa’s own, as a young religious feminist searching for her own path. Ideal for readers of any religious background, As a Burning Flame aims to introduce its audience to this long-forgotten chapter of Jewish feminist history, and to inspire conversation about evolving female religious identities in our own time.