A brief bio:

Originally from Ohio,  Tamar Frankiel has lived the last several decades in Los Angeles, where she and her husband raised their five children.  After completing her PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School, she taught in various universities. In 2002 she joined the faculty of a Jewish seminary and graduate school — the Academy for Jewish Religion California — to help educate rabbis, cantors, chaplains, and other community professionals. She served in the faculty and administration there for many years, including as President, and now continues to represent the Academy as an active participant in academic interfaith dialogue with representatives of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

Recently, Tamar turned to writing fiction. She recently published Perhaps for This Moment, a novel set in the period after the Bar Kochba War (ended 135 CE) and exploring the tensions within Jewish life about the homeland and diasapora as well as between early rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Previously, she wrote Earth Island Rising, following a woman’s spiritual development through dreams and visions in the context of an ancient Native American culture.

Tamar’s primary interests, besides continuing study of comparative religion, are spiritual development through prayer, contemplation, and dreaming. She leads and participates in women’s dream circles in Los Angeles, and assists her spiritual teacher, Connie Kaplan, in new online project teaching Kaplan’s The Invisible Garment and dreaming as a spiritual practice.

Her favorite fiction:  Edith Parteger, The Heaven Tree Trilogy and (under the name of Ellis Peters) The Brother Cadfael Chronicles; and Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, beginning with Wolf Hall.  Her favorite nonfiction:  Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg’s explications of Torah.   Her favorite videos:  the ones starring any of her children or grandchildren!

Selected recent articles by Tamar:

“In Recovery from Moral Trauma,” Huffington Post, November 2016.

“Pornography and Power,” Huffington Post, December 2015.

“Why Religion Is a Laughing Matter,” Los Angeles Jewish Journal, January 2015.

Her books are listed below:

from Gaon Books, Santa Fe, from their listings in Jewish spirituality:

from Jewish Lights / Turner Publishing:

from HarperSanFrancisco and Bloch Publishing:

from academic publishers: