Hebrew Healing: Jewish Authenticity and Religious Healing in Canada

This paper describes a Jewish healing group, referred to as ‘Yehi Ohr’, and discusses strategies for constructing religious authenticity employed by Yehi Ohr's leader and the rabbis who have assisted in leading Yehi Ohr's service. A discussion of the participants in the healing service follows, with an outline of their criteria for authenticity and a focus on the range of their healing experiences. By demonstrating the centrality of these strategies for achieving authenticity in the work of Yehi Ohr, the paper points to the importance of issues of authenticity to the success of this religious healing group and proposes that authenticity may well be central to the work of other healing groups in pluralistic, postmodern settings.