Quote:
The passing of souls into successive bodily forms, either human or animal. According to Pythagoras, who probably learned the doctrine in Egypt, the rational mind (ψρήν), after having been freed from the chains of the body, assumes an ethereal vehicle, and passes into the region of the dead, where it remains till it is sent back to this world to inhabit some other body, human or animal. After undergoing successive purgations, and when it is sufficiently purified, it is received among the gods, and returns to the eternal source from which it first proceeded. This doctrine was foreign to Judaism until about the eighth century,when, under the influence of the Mohammedan mystics, it was adopted by the Karaites and other Jewish dissenters...
The doctrine counted so few adherents among the Jews that, with the exception of Abraham ibn Daud ("Emunah Ramah," I. 7), no Jewish philosopher until Ḥasdai Crescas even deemed it necessary to refute it. Only with the spread of the Cabala did it begin to take root in Judaism, and then it gained believers even among men who were little inclined toward mysticism...
Gilgul.
The theory of impregnation gave birth to the superstitious belief in "dibbuḳ" or "gilgul," which prevailed, and still prevails, among the Oriental Jews and those of eastern Europe. This belief assumes that there are souls which are condemned to wander for a time in this world, where they are tormented by evil spirits which watch and accompany them everywhere. To escape their tormentors such souls sometimes take refuge in the bodies of living pious men and women, over whom the evil spirits have no power. The person to whom such a soul clings endures great suffering and loses his own individuality; he acts as though he were quite another man, and loses all moral sense. He can be cured only by a miracle-working rabbi ("ba'al shem") who is able to cast out the soul from his body by exorcisms and amulets.
It sounds to me like some do, particularly Hasidic Jews and Kabbalists, and some don't believe in reincarnation. The Jewish Encyclopedia also has an interesting