Name Pascal Themanlys Role Poet | Died June 25, 2000 | |
Pascal Themanlys (27 September 1909 – 25 June 2000) was a French (later Israeli) poet, Zionist, and Kabbalist. His books on Jewish mysticism have been published in French, English and Hebrew.
Pascal was born in Paris; his French parents Louis and Claire Themanlys were important disciples of Max Theon, and in charge of the "Cosmic Movement" in France. Pascal himself only met Theon once in 1920 (when he was eleven, Théon was well into his seventies), although he claimed later he was initiated by his father Louis. This supplemented his own studies of traditional Lurianic Kabbalah.
At fifteen, he published his first collection of poems, work of poems, a booklet called the Emerald Monocle, in 1924. He met a number of important authors and artists such as Rabindranath Tagore and Paul Valéry. In 1934 his book Les merveilles du Becht (Wonders of Becht) was published, the first book in French about the Baal Shem Tov.
During the Second World War he was a member of the French resistance. In 1947, he married his wife, Raymonde; they would later have three children.
In 1949 he emigrated to Israel where he became the head the French section of the Department of Information of the Jewish Agency. He was also the founder of the Amitiés Israël-France (Israel-France Friendship) society.
After his retirement from the civil service he founded the Argaman Center, and taught and studied Kabbalah. He seems to have had a very poor opinion of liberal Judaism.