A lot of information is to be found about Kabbalah, the tradition of Jewish mysticism.
Practical Kabbalah: Glossary
kesef or kishuf: magic
khokhmah khizonah: Dark knowledge; that is, black magic.
m'kasefa: witch (Hebrew)
maskil (sing.) maskilim (pl.): mystic, mystics.
http://www.atomick.net/fayelevine/pk/gloss.shtml
Yet though he tried every source, he could get no information about magic, for magic was forbidden to the Jews, God's chosen people.
"The Sorcerer", from Meshal Ha-Kadmoni, by Isaac Ibn Sahula (1281). Quoted in Rabbinic Fantasies, p. 299
Forbidden Practices
1. Any act which is performed without divine or related supernatural aid. In other words, any act which does not rely in some way on the power of God and/or His creations (e.g., angels).
2. Anything which produces a material effect solely by means of "the performance of an act", such as transmuting one thing into another. (Moses' staff becoming a snake would in my mind be an exception, since that was a divine act–God made this happen, and personally directed Moses' actions, in an attempt to sway Pharaoh.) This was also known as "manipulating the inner nature of a thing".
3. Inappropriate use of the Divine to do harm, serve greed, or to blatantly defy nature. For example, the Ba'al Shem Abu Aharon was chastised for using Holy Names to make a lion turn his mill (after the lion ate his donkey), not because he used "magic" or called on God's power, but because it upset the natural order of things. A lion was not meant to do such a thing.
4. The use of sympathetic magic; that is, affecting someone or something from a distance through the use of an image or effigy (like a doll). This would generally be considered manipulating the inner nature of a person or thing without divine aid (see above), which is forbidden. Though these practices seem to have been forbidden, I have found references to and examples of sympathetic "recipes" for love charms and so on, probably borrowed from non-Jewish sources. I have also encountered stories of hero-rabbis using a mirror to see evildoers or reflect their attacks back on them. There seems to have been a legitimate means of getting to someone via a divine third party; this was by calling on an angel known as the memuneh.
5. That which creates an illusion, because illusions are the creations of demons.
6. "Black Magic", necromancy, the use of unholy Names, etc. Knowledge of these matters was not forbidden (since it was sometimes necessary to combat the forces of evil), but practicing them was. Unfortunately, because information on the "black arts" was sometimes included in the same book as information on acceptable, practical Kabbalah, this contributed to the negative reputation of the practical Kabbalists.
Permitted Practices
1. That which invokes God or other supernatural aid (e.g., angels).
2. That which relies on the use of divine Names.
As you can see, what is "permitted" occupies a fairly limited scope which eliminates much what we would normally call "magic". (Still, we find some very creative applications within the boundaries.)
The point, and the most important thing to keep in mind, is that the power lies not with the mortal, but with God. It is the mortal¹s piety, virtue, and knowledge which allows him to call on this divine aid–not a small thing at all, when you think about it. As long as the process involved divine intervention for the right reasons, it was acceptable.
Many Jewish mystics also believed astrology to be a permissible "magic", since the stars were associated with the heavens. Moses Isserles called this the "scientific" branch of the "magical arts", "by which a man can foretell the future, make talismans, and subdue the spirits and the powers of the stars..."
http://www.atomick.net/fayelevine/pk/prac03.shtml