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Colette Aboulker-Muscat

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Colette Béatrice Aboulker-Muscat (28 January 1909 – 25 November 2003) was a French teacher, writer, natural healer, and kabbalist whose focus was on the healing power of dream imagery. As a young woman, she took part in the Resistance movement in Vichy Algeria with her father Dr. Henri Samuel Aboulker and brother Jose Aboulker and, as a result, was awarded the Croix de Guerre in January 1948.[1][2] She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne as well as psychology with French psychotherapist Robert Desoille, becoming interested in mental imagery and dream imagery, which would become her life's work.[3] A practitioner of The Kabbalah of Light, in 1954 she moved to Jerusalem where she was honored with the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award in 1995, and authored five books about the healing power of mental and dream imagery.

Colette Aboulker-Muscat
Aboulker receiving the Croix de Guerre in Algiers, January 1948
Born
Colette Béatrice Aboulker

(1909-01-28) 28 January 1909 (age 115)
Algiers, Algeria
Died25 November 2003(2003-11-25) (aged 94)
Jerusalem, Israel
EducationThe Sorbonne
Known forKabbalah, Dream Opening
Spouse(s)Samuel Danan
Aryeh Muscat
Children2
Parents
RelativesJose Aboulker (brother)
FamilyAboulker
AwardsYakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem), Croix de Guerre

Early life and education

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Colette Béatrice Aboulker was born on 28 January 1909, in the city of Algiers in French Algeria. She was a member of the prominent Jewish-Algerian Aboulker family:[4] her father, Henri Samuel Aboulker (1876–1957), was a noted neurosurgeon and Jewish community leader,[5][6] her mother, Berthe Bénichou-Aboulker, was a poet and playwright,[7] and her brother Jose Aboulker was a surgeon, a leading figure of the anti-Nazi resistance in Algeria during World War II,[8][9] and the representative of the Resistance in Vichy Algeria at the French Committee of National Liberation in Paris from 1944 to 1945.[10]

As members of the French resistance movement, she and her family were instrumental in helping American naval forces land in Algiers [11][12] and she worked tirelessly for the release of her father, brother, and other members of the Jewish resistance who were rounded up and imprisoned after the assassination of the Vichy viceroy of North Africa, Admiral François Darlan.[13] She also volunteered in a military hospital in Algiers and, as a result of both her heroism and service, was awarded the Croix de Guerre in January 1948.[1][14]

After the war, she studied psychology in Paris at the Sorbonne, where she met French psychotherapist Robert Desoille and first became interested in mental imagery and dream imagery, which would become her life's work, going on to get a doctorate in philosophy as well.[3] She served as President of the North African chapter of the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO).[15]

In 1954, she moved to Israel with her second husband, Aryeh Muscat, formerly an emissary of the Jewish Agency in Algeria. Along with her own work, she was active in helping assimilate immigrants from North Africa, for which she was honored in 1995 with the title Yakir Yerushalayim ("Beloved of Jerusalem").[citation needed]

The Kabbalah of Light

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Aboulker-Muscat was a spiritual teacher in the tradition of the "Kabbalah of Light," tradition, also known as Merkavah or Chariot mysticism, described in the first 28 lines of the Book of Ezekiel. She was considered by her students and followers to be the 20th century representative of a lineage that had as practitioners Rabbis Isaac the Blind of Provence, France, and Jacob Ben Sheshet of Gerona, Spain in the 13th century.[16]

Her legacy was continued by a broad range of practitioners including psychiatrist Gerald Epstein, founder of The Colette Aboulker-Muscat Center for Waking Dream Therapy (now The American Institute for Mental Imagery; Catherine Shainberg, founder of the School of Images; Canadian poet Carol Rose;[17] Louise von Dardel (niece of Raoul Wallenberg)[18] and Eve Ilsen, Rabbinic Pastor of the Aleph Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which her late husband Zalman Schachter-Shalomi was instrumental in founding.[19]

Personal life

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She had two children with her first husband, Samuel Danan.[citation needed] Her second husband was Aryeh Muscat, a Russian-born lawyer who held the post of The Municipality Comptroller of the city of Jerusalem.[20]

Written works

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  • Life is not a Novel (2003, Black Jasmine, ISBN 0978880218)
  • Mea Culpa: Tales of Resurrection (1997, ACMI Press, ASIN B0030K0188)
  • Alone With the One: Poetry (2000, ACMI Press, ISBN 1883148014)
  • Reversing Cancer through Mental Imagery Simcha H. Benyosef (Author), Colette Aboulker-Muscat (Contributor), Gerald N. Epstein (Foreword) (2017, ACMI Press, ISBN 188314809X)
  • The Encyclopedia of Mental Imagery: Colette Aboulker-Muscat's 2,100 Visualization Exercises for Personal Development, Healing, and Self-Knowledge, by Barbarah L. Fedoroff, Gerald Epstein (2012, ACMI Press,ISBN 9781883148102)

References

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  1. ^ a b La résistance juive en Algérie, 1940-1942, Gitta Amipaz-Silber, r. Mass, 1986 p 178
  2. ^ "Charlie Pottins Lighting the Torch in Algiers", 5 December 2014, https://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/features/item/lighting-the-torch-in-algiers
  3. ^ a b Francoise Coriat, February 2005 A Family Tradition: Colette and her family during World War II, geocities.ws. Accessed 5 March 2024.
  4. ^ Richard Ayoun, “Aboulker (Abū ʾl-Khayr) Family”, in: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 18 January 2022 First published online: 2010 https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-jews-in-the-islamic-world/aboulker-abu-l-khayr-family-SIM_0000190
  5. ^ Gildea, Robert (30 November 2015). Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance. Harvard University Press. pp. 251–253. ISBN 9780674286108.
  6. ^ David Cohen, “Aboulker, Henri”, in: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 17 January 2022 First published online: 2010.
  7. ^ "Berthe Bénichou-Aboulker".
  8. ^ Derman, Ushi (11 January 2015). "Forgotten Torch: The Untold Story of the Jewish Resistance in Algeria". Museum of the Jewish People, Tel Aviv. ANU. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  9. ^ "Holocaust ceremony to commemorate Jews who saved fellow Jews during WWII". Jerusalem Post. 6 April 2021. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  10. ^ Ethan Katz, "Aboulker, José”, in: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 18 January 2022. First published online: 2010.
  11. ^ The Jews Who Helped the Americans Free Algeria From the Nazis https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/MAGAZINE-the-jews-who-helped-the-u-s-free-algeria-from-the-nazis-1.5730698, Haaretz, Jan. 14, 2018
  12. ^ "Lighting the Torch in Algiers". Jewish Socialist. 65 (Winter 2012-2013). U.K.: The Jewish Socialists’ Group (JSG). Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  13. ^ "Algeria Virtual Jewish History Tour". Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). 2008. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  14. ^ Bitton, Michelle (31 December 1999). "Berthe Bénichou-Aboulker". The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  15. ^ "Exposition des travaux d'eleves de l'Ecole de Coupe et Couture de l'O.R.T.". Information Juive⁩⁩, 15 July 1954, The National Library of Israel Newspaper Collection. Accessed 3 January 2022.
  16. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia Jacob Ben Sheshet Gerondi, by Kaufmann Kohler, Isaac Broydé, 1906.
  17. ^ Harnessing the Imagination Carol Rose Spider Woman: A Tapestry of Creativity & Healing, J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing, 1999, pp. 143-150
  18. ^ Louise von Dardel - Raoul Wallenbrg's niece - with Colette Aboulker Muscat's students and friends, Les Glassman, April 9, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZqXwpD2GiA
  19. ^ "Rebbe-meises: Chasidic Stories from Reb Zalman, Told by Eve Ilsen". Boulder Jewish News. 11 November 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  20. ^ "About Colette - Jerry's spiritual teacher". Dr. Gerald Epstein: Institute for Imagery, Health and Wellness. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
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