Jewish Studies Judaism and Buddhism
by
Sebastian Musch
  • LAST MODIFIED: 25 July 2023
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199840731-0235

Introduction

Until recently, the field of Jewish-Buddhist studies had been neglected. The dearth of proper academic literature on the relationship between Judaism and Buddhism remains a problem, and despite many meritorious and pioneering studies in recent years, many aspects—historic especially—remain insufficiently researched. Scholarship on Judaism and Buddhism can be divided into three waves. The first wave proliferated from the mid-nineteenth century with speculation on links between Judaism and Buddhism in antiquity, especially regarding the influence of Buddhist ideas on the Hebrew Bible. However, this line of research subsequently lost some amount of clout among scholars during the twentieth century, and its publications are of limited value today. Comparative approaches gained popularity in a second wave during the 1960s and 1970s with the growing interest in Buddhism and Buddhist-inspired meditation during the counterculture movement, when North American Jews in particular developed a strong affinity to Buddhism that persists today. This has been widely known as the JuBu (or JewBu) phenomenon since Rodger Kamenetz’s classic The Jew in the Lotus (1994), which gave birth to a generation of scholars of Jewish-Buddhist studies who were part of this trend as much as they shaped it. Since the 1990s, the current and third wave of scholarship has used sociological, ethnographic, and historical approaches around three main foci: the so-called JuBu phenomenon remains of paramount interest, the first and second waves of Jewish-Buddhist Studies have begun to be historicized by scholars as a research subject in itself, and Jewish-Buddhist interactions not only in North America but also in Europe and Israel have garnered increasing attention. All this has recently brought new methodological qualities previously missing in Jewish-Buddhist studies to the forefront. Future tasks for the field include the study of syncretistic practices that blend Buddhism and Judaism; the exploration of Jews in Buddhist contexts in South and East Asia, a focus that has been lacking most often due to linguistic and disciplinary limitations; and developing all these geographical aspects into a global history of Judaism and Buddhism.

General Overviews

A good introduction to or overview of the combination of Judaism and Buddhism from a scholarly point of view is still missing. However, several studies exist that can serve as introductory guides for the perplexed, despite being limited by either their partisan or apologetic outlooks or their narrow geographical or historical foci. Katz 2009 and Brill 2012 are good starting points, as is Sigalow 2019, despite its focus on the specific North American contexts. Obadia 2015 and Obadia 2018 offer ethnographic approaches. Sasson 2012, Niculescu 2017, and Musch 2019 lay out the need for the study of Judaism and Buddhism and discuss potential avenues for future research.

  • Brill, Alan. “Buddhist Encounters.” In Judaism and World Religions. By Alan Brill, 235–254. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

    DOI: 10.1057/9781137013187Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A comprehensive and clear overview of Jewish-Buddhist encounters since the Middle Ages, with a short but much needed, yet rare, discussion of thinkers from the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) up to contemporary Jewish thinkers and their views of Eastern religions. While the presented narrative has major lacunae, Brill does a great job in outlining the long durée of the Jewish perception of Buddhism.

    Find this resource:

  • Katz, Nathan. “Buddhist-Jewish Relations throughout the Ages and in the Future.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 10 (2009): 7–23.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A good general overview of Judaism and Buddhism that is both comparative and historical, if a bit cursory. Albeit now slightly outdated, the article remains of value to scholars, not the least because of its comprehensive bibliography.

    Find this resource:

  • Musch, Sebastian. Jewish Encounters with Buddhism in German Culture: Between Moses and Buddha, 1890–1940. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-27469-6Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    In this study, the author looks at the various ways in which a wide range of German-Jewish intellectuals—including rabbis, philosophers, and writers—have approached and appropriated Buddhism. Musch’s work includes chapters on Jewish-Buddhist encounters through the lenses of Orientalism and makes a call for Jewish-Buddhist studies.

    Find this resource:

  • Niculescu, Mira. “JewBus Are Not What They Used to Be: A Call for a Diachronic Study of the Phenomenon of the ‘Jewish Buddhists.’” In Special Issue: JewBus, Jewish Hindus & other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions. Edited by Nathanael Riemer and Rachel Albeck-Gidron, and Markus Krah. PaRDeS: Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien 23 (2017): 149–161.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author argues convincingly that much of the investigation on Jewish-Buddhist interactions since the counterculture era seems stuck in monolithic, atemporal descriptions, proposing a timeline that distinguishes between three phases: the seventies, the age of challenging; the nineties, the age of claiming; the 2000s, the age of reclaiming.

    Find this resource:

  • Obadia, Lionel. Shalom Bouddha! Judaïsme et bouddhisme: Une rencontre inattendue. Paris: Berg, 2015.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An ethnographic study of the meeting of Judaism and Buddhism, thus far available only in French. A concise overview of the author’s main thesis can be found in his English language article, Obadia 2018.

    Find this resource:

  • Obadia, Lionel. “The Relevance and Limits of ‘Hybridization’ Theory: The Case of Jubus, ‘Jewish-Buddhists.’” In Religious Encounters in Transcultural Society. Collision, Alteration, and Transmission. Edited by David William Kim, 181–202. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A theoretical discussion of the opportunities and pitfalls of the terminology surrounding the JuBu phenomenon and the stakes of applying these terms to complex religious identities and encounters.

    Find this resource:

  • Sasson, Vanessa. “A Call for Jewish-Buddhist Studies.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 12 (2012): 7–17.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An eloquent case for research into Judaism and Buddhism as part of the comparative study of religion that clearly lays out the obstacles to such an endeavor.

    Find this resource:

  • Sigalow, Emily. American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

    DOI: 10.2307/j.ctvh8r33bSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A pioneering examination of the Jewish encounter with Buddhism in the United States through a mix of historiographic, sociological, and ethnographic studies.

    Find this resource:

Historical Interaction between Judaism and Buddhism in Ancient and Medieval Times

Judaism and Buddhism share a long history—just how long has been the subject of scholarly debate. The study of Buddhism’s influence on early Judaism remains a highly speculative affair. Katz 2009 provides a good historical overview of possible meeting points between Judaism and Buddhism. From the second half of the nineteenth century until the beginning of the twentieth century, probing a Buddhist influence on Jesus was a popular occupation of Christian theologians, scholars of religion, and esoterically inclined thinkers, who were mostly keen to prove or refute the notion of Buddhist roots of Christianity. Marchand 2009 devotes several chapters to this topic. Many of the studies therein relied on philological or etymological clues and circumstantial evidence and engaged in what has been dubbed parallelomania—i.e., the overemphasis of historic parallels based on what is only tenuous evidence. Most of these highly speculative works are of limited value today and are rarely cited, if ever, and consequently have been omitted here. In recent decades, scholars have considered this topic secondary, while cautious comparative research of the Hebrew Bible and Buddhist scriptures continues. Sasson 2007 is one example of these comparative approaches. Works such as Neudecker 2002 and Silk 2008 are careful not to claim any direct influence. Xiuyuan 2018 offers an example of a careful examination of how links between Buddhist and Jewish thought in medieval times might be reconstructed.

  • Katz, Nathan. “Buddhist-Jewish Relations throughout the Ages and in the Future.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 10 (2009): 7–23.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    In the first half of the article, the author lists possible links between Judaism and Buddhism from ancient times to medieval times, most through travelers and trade routes. See also Obadia 2002 (cited under Judaism and Buddhism in Europe and Israel).

    Find this resource:

  • Marchand, Suzanne. German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race, and Scholarship. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This weighty tome offers an encyclopedic overview of German scholarship on the “Orient” in the nineteenth century, dedicating subchapters to (mostly Christian) scholars who investigated the connection between Judaism and Buddhism (pp. 134–138, 270–279 and passim).

    Find this resource:

  • Neudecker, Reinhard. The Voice of God on Mount Sinai: Rabbinic Commentaries on Exodus 20:1 in Light of Sufi and Zen-Buddhist Texts. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2002.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    In this theological study, the author reads rabbinical interpretations of Exodus 20:1, the biblical section naming the Ten Commandments, in comparison with Sufi and Zen Buddhist traditions. Includes an extensive appendix of relevant texts.

    Find this resource:

  • Sasson, Vanessa R. The Birth of Moses and the Buddha: A Paradigm for the Comparative Study of Religion. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author analyzes rabbinical sources alongside the Pali canon, discussing the birth stories of Moses and the Buddha, respectively. The book’s additional value lies in the author’s identification of relevant sources from both traditions and is, therefore, a good starting point for further research.

    Find this resource:

  • Silk, Jonathan. “Incestuous Ancestries: The Family Origins of Gautama Siddhārtha, Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 20:12, and the Status of Scripture in Buddhism.” History of Religions 47.4 (2008): 253–281.

    DOI: 10.1086/589781Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article from a leading scholar of Buddhism can serve as an example of the current value of comparative methods that can illuminate fundamental questions without sliding into speculation about historical links or influence.

    Find this resource:

  • Xiuyuan, Dong. “The Presence of Buddhist Thought in Kalām Literature.” Philosophy East and West 68.3 (July 2018): 944–973.

    DOI: 10.1353/pew.2018.0080Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A detailed discussion on the possible influence of Buddhist ideas on medieval religious Islamic and Jewish thought, particularly as they pertain to Jewish philosopher Saadia Gaon.

    Find this resource:

The North American Jewish-Buddhist Experience

This infatuation of North American Jews with Buddhism has resulted in a myriad of publications. In recent years, the study of the so-called JuBu (or JewBu) phenomenon has received considerable attention. Linzer 1996 remained the go-to study for over twenty years. More recently, Sigalow 2019 and Ariel 2019 have provided erudite additions focusing on more general social trends, while Gez 2011 and Vallely 2006 look at intrinsic motivations.

  • Ariel, Yaakov. “From a Jewish Communist to a Jewish Buddhist: Allen Ginsberg as a Forerunner of a New American Jew.” Religions 10 (2019): 100.

    DOI: 10.3390/rel10020100Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author argues that the life of famous poet Allen Ginsberg and his journey from Communism to Buddhism is paradigmatic for a larger shift among American Jewry that led them to embrace choices outside the traditional Jewish fold—Buddhism among them—as authentic expressions of their individual Jewishness.

    Find this resource:

  • Gez, Yonatan N. “The Phenomenon of Jewish Buddhists in Light of the History of Jewish Suffering.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 15 (2011): 44–68.

    DOI: 10.1525/nr.2011.15.1.44Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Taking its starting point from Linzer 1996, this study situates the JuBu phenomenon in the context of a history of Jewish suffering that finds its culmination in the Holocaust, subsequently triggering the heightened interest of post-Holocaust Jewry in Buddhism as a search for spiritual reconvalescence. While later research such as Sigalow 2019 and Ariel 2019 offers more convincing rationales, this nevertheless was and has remained an important contribution.

    Find this resource:

  • Linzer, Judith. Torah and Dharma: Jewish Seekers in Eastern Religions. London: Jason Aronson, 1996.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Until recently, the most thorough study on Jews and Buddhism was based on a PhD thesis written in the 1970s. Linzer is closely aligned with Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s Jewish Renewal Movement, and at times the book has a slightly apologetic tone. Based on twenty interviews with—what the author calls—Jewish “seekers” of spiritual fulfillment in Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism, the book’s interpretations, for the most part, are a bit dated.

    Find this resource:

  • Sigalow, Emily. American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

    DOI: 10.2307/j.ctvh8r33bSave Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The best account of the North American JuBu phenomenon; Sigalow chronicles—in the first historiographic section—the encounter of American Jewry with Buddhism through a variety of influential figures from the end of the nineteenth century until today. In the second ethnographic section, the author argues that the Americanization of Buddhism produced a vernacular version that proved highly attractive to the “Jewish social location.” The historical section is bogged down by its many omissions.

    Find this resource:

  • Vallely, Anne. “Jewish Redemption by Way of the Buddha: A Post-modern Tale of Exile and Return.” Jewish Culture and History 8 (2006): 22–39.

    DOI: 10.1080/1462169X.2006.10512056Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A contribution to the growing literature on religious identity in-between Judaism and Buddhism, based on the author’s experience with Jews engaged in Buddhist or Buddhism-derived practices in Ottawa and Montreal.

    Find this resource:

Personal Narratives

The encounter of Jews with Buddhism in the North American context is full of personal narratives—often by rabbis associated with the Jewish Renewal Movement—that detail the navigation between Judaism and Buddhism, especially Buddhist meditation practices. Kasimow, et al. 2003 offers an appropriate starting point. Kamenetz 1994 put the topic on the literary landscape and caused an increased interest in Judaism and Buddhism. Besides Kamenetz, the best known and most erudite of these personal narratives are Fischer 1995, Boorstein 1997, Cooper 1994, Shoshanna 2008, and Lew 2005. Katz 2009 and Linzer 1999 are personal narratives by scholars. While most of the works mentioned in this section are not strictly scholarly, they are included here because of their pioneering status and shaping of the image of the Jewish-Buddhist encounter, namely as a highly individual negotiation of Jewish belonging and finding value in Buddhist ideas outside of mainstream Jewish thought. These books addressed a growing interest in the interaction between Judaism and Buddhism when the academy showed little regard for this topic. Marks 1999 and Niculescu 2017 offer the first scholarly assessments of these narratives.

Comparative Approaches

Since the growing interest in Judaism and Buddhism in the wake of the counterculture movement, comparative approaches have played a significant role in Jewish-Buddhist studies in the English-speaking academy. The reason for this penchant concerning especially comparisons between Hasidim and Zen—along with its proclivity to skid into ahistorical speculation—lies in the Jewish Renewal Movement background of many of its authors, as well as the popularity of the Zen teacher D. T. Suzuki’s writings in the counterculture movement. Heifertz 1978 is more of historical value, while Teshima 1995 offers one of the deeper analyses. The overlap between comparative approaches and interfaith dialogue here is considerable. Kasimow 2015 provides an overview. A series of publications with Masao Abe and various Jewish thinkers, starting with Cobb and Ives 1990 and continuing with “Responses to the Rejoinder of Masao Abe” (in the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies), Abe 1995, and Ives 1995, document the most extensive interfaith effort between Judaism and Buddhism until today.

  • Abe, Masao. “Zen Buddhism and Hasidism—Similarities and Contrasts.” In Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue. Edited by Steven Heine, 159–165. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.

    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-13454-0_13Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Abe, one of the fathers of the interfaith dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity, approaches Hasidism through a lens colored by Martin Buber’s idiosyncratic understanding. Despite this caveat, this is a valuable contribution to the interaction between Buddhism and Judaism that does not glide over the differences but offers a sympathetic Buddhist view. This essay can be read as an addition to the Jewish-Buddhist interfaith dialogue documented in Cobb and Ives 1990, “Responses to the Rejoinder of Masao Abe,” and Ives 1995.

    Find this resource:

  • Cobb, John B., and Christopher Ives, eds. The Emptying God: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1990.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This volume documents a triangular interfaith conversation centered around Masao Abe’s well-known essay “Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata,” included here, which—among other issues—raised the question of the collective karma and its meaning for our understanding of the Holocaust. Eugene Borowitz, a noted Jewish thinker and rabbi from Reform Judaism, offers a response to Abe’s musings. The conversation continues in “Responses to the Rejoinder of Masao Abe” and Ives 1995.

    Find this resource:

  • Heifertz, Harold, ed. Zen and Hasidism: The Similarities between Two Spiritual Disciplines. Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An eclectic collection of commentary on the comparison of Judaism and Buddhism, with the explicit aim of highlighting parallels between Zen Buddhism and Hasidism. Includes comments by philosopher Martin Buber, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and beat poet Gary Snyder, among many others.

    Find this resource:

  • Ives, Christoper, ed. Divine Emptiness and Historical Fullness: A Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation with Masao Abe. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Another collection centered on Abe’s essay “Kenotic God and Dynamic Sunyata,” with two Jewish responses. Richard Rubinstein and Sandra B. Lubarsky take issues with Abe’s understanding of the Holocaust as rooted in human ignorance and the collective karma of human existence. See also Cobb and Ives 1990 and “Responses to the Rejoinder of Masao Abe.”

    Find this resource:

  • Kasimow, Harold. “Reflections on Jewish and Christian Encounters with Buddhism.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 35 (2015): 21–28.

    DOI: 10.1353/bcs.2015.0020Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A short but suitable overview of rabbis and Jewish thinkers’ many responses to the Jewish-Buddhist dialogue beyond the usual suspects.

    Find this resource:

  • “Responses to the Rejoinder of Masao Abe.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 13 (1993): 206–231.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    In this section of the journal, the triangular interfaith conversation in Cobb and Ives 1990 finds its continuation. Includes another response by Eugene Borowitz and a response to Borowitz by Abe. See also Cobb and Ives 1990 and Ives 1995.

    Find this resource:

  • Teshima, Jacob Yuroh. Zen Buddhism and Hasidism: A Comparative Study. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    In this slim but dense volume, the author compares different concepts from Hasidism and (both Chinese and Japanese) Zen Buddhism, especially surrounding the aspects of their respective meditation practices (e.g., the Zen Buddhist practice of Zazen and the Hasidic practice of Devekut) and the question of selfhood. Of Japanese descent, a graduate of the Hebrew University Jerusalem, and a student of Abraham Heschel, the author is fluent in both Judaism and Buddhism and draws from his full knowledge.

    Find this resource:

Judaism and Buddhism in Europe and Israel

Research into Judaism and Buddhism in Europe and Israel is a more recent affair than in the United States, for the most part skipping the North American stage triggered by the countercultural interest in Buddhism. However, before the Holocaust, the European Jewish middle class showed a strong interest in Buddhism, and many Jewish thinkers and scholars engaged with Buddhism in their writings, as shown by Weiss 2017 and Musch 2019 (cited under General Overviews). Recently, the proliferation of Buddhist meditation practices in Israel has come under scrutiny as well. Obadia 2002 offers a first overview; Albeck-Gidron 2017 and Federman 2009 offer a rare historical perspective; while Loss 2010 and Mautner and Mizrachi 2020 investigate the proliferation of meditation practices among different segments of Israeli society.

  • Albeck-Gidron, Rachel. “At Opposite Ends of Asia—Contact between East Asian Culture and Modern Hebrew Literature from the Late Nineteenth Century until Today. A Historiographical and Linguistic Study.” In Special Issue: JewBus, Jewish Hindus & Other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions. Edited by Nathanael Riemer, Rachel Albeck-Gidron, and Markus Krah. PaRDeS: Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien 23 (2017): 95–118.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article outlines the Asian influence on Hebrew literature in three waves, the first starting in Europe in the late nineteenth century, mostly mediated through German philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and their narrow view of Buddhism; the second wave beginning in the 1950s with the influence of the Beat Generation; the third wave being the current global New Age phenomenon and its Buddhism-derived practices.

    Find this resource:

  • Federman, Asaf. “His Excellency and the Monk: a Correspondence between Nyanaponika Thera and David Ben-Gurion.” Contemporary Buddhism 10.2 (2009): 197–219.

    DOI: 10.1080/14639940903239769Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    This article details the exchange of letters between the first Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who held a strong interest in Buddhism, and one of the foremost thinkers of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century, Nyanaponika, born to Jewish parents in Germany under the name Siegmund Shlomo Feniger and later migrating to British Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) in the 1930s.

    Find this resource:

  • Loss, Joseph. “Buddha-Dhamma in Israel: Explicit Non-religious and Implicit Non-secular Localization of Religion.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 13.4 (2010): 84–105.

    DOI: 10.1525/nr.2010.13.4.84Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    In this methodologically sophisticated article, the author discusses the proliferation of Buddhist ideas and practices among Jewish Israelis and their complex negotiations of religious identity between local Jewish religiosity, secularism, and global Buddhism.

    Find this resource:

  • Mautner, Ori, and Nissim Mizrachi. “When Buddhist Vipassanā Travels to Jewish West Bank Settlements: Openness without Cosmopolitanism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 43.7 (2020): 1227–1245.

    DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1640377Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An anthropological approach to the practice of insight meditation (vipassanā, or contemplative and ascetic techniques from Theravada Buddhism) among Israeli Jews in the occupied West Bank and how their cultural openness deepens their national-religious identity.

    Find this resource:

  • Obadia, Lionel. “Buddha in the Promised Land? Outlines of the Settlement of Buddhism in Israel.” In Westward Dharma: Buddhism beyond Asia. Edited by Martin Baumann and Charles Prebish, 177–188. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author provides a critical discussion of the scholarly inquiries on the interaction between Judaism and Buddhism in North America before offering an overview of the Buddhist landscape in Israel and its rapid development since the 1990s.

    Find this resource:

  • Weiss, Aleš. “Buddhism as a Tool of Polemic and Self-Definition among German Rabbis in the 19th and Early 20th Century.” In Special Issue: JewBus, Jewish Hindus & other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions. Edited by Nathanael Riemer, Rachel Albeck-Gidron, and Markus Krah. PaRDeS: Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien 23 (2017): 73–93.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author investigates the writings of German rabbis Ludwig Philippson, Ludwig Stein, and Leo Baeck, among others, and shows how their polemic engagement with Buddhism reflected their respective understandings of Judaism.

    Find this resource:

Jewish-Buddhist Encounters in South- and East-Asian Countries

Research on Jews in South and East Asia has proliferated in the last decades and many meritorious studies have appeared, especially on Jewish communities in China, Japan, and India. Unfortunately for the state of Jewish-Buddhist studies, the interaction between Jews and Buddhism is often mostly mentioned in passing. Studies on the (mostly microscopic) Jewish communities in countries with a Buddhist majority, such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Burma, Bhutan, and Mongolia, are largely absent or lacking quality. More research is warranted. For further research on Chinese Jews and Buddhism, Goldstein 2000 is a good starting point. Ehrlich 2009 remains the best source, while Hutter 2013 and Goldstein 2015 are crucial for different countries.

  • Ehrlich, M. Avrum, ed. Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture. Vol. 3, Countries, Regions and Communities. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Contains long sections on “East Asia,” “India and Pakistan,” and “South Asia” with entries on all countries, including basic facts, a timeline-based historical overview, and a selected bibliography. A helpful source for further research.

    Find this resource:

  • Goldstein, Jonathan, ed. The Jews of China. Vol. 2, A Sourcebook and Research Guide. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Source material and an extensive bibliographic and archival guide, divided into four sections: 1. “Traditional Chinese Awareness of Jews”; 2. “Memoirs”; 3. “Research Guides”; 4. “Bibliography.”

    Find this resource:

  • Goldstein, Jonathan. Jewish Identities in East and Southeast Asia: Singapore, Manila, Taipei, Harbin, Shanghai, Rangoon, and Surabaya. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2015.

    DOI: 10.1515/9783110351507Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Tracing the transnational development of these Jewish communities—some in cities with a Buddhist majority or sizable Buddhist communities—from the mid-eighteenth century, this volume offers a stepping stone for further investigation.

    Find this resource:

  • Hutter, Manfred, ed. Between Mumbai and Manila: Judaism in Asia Since the Founding of the State Israel. Göttingen, Germany: V&R Press, 2013.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Proceedings from a conference at the University of Bonn in 2012, including a wide range of different countries and contexts, many of interest for scholars of Jewish-Buddhist studies.

    Find this resource:

Jewish Thinkers and Writers on Buddhism

Many canonical thinkers and writers from the twentieth century have commented on the relationship between Judaism and Buddhism, if, for the most part, only in passing. The philosophers Martin Buber (discussed in Friedman 1976, Dean-Otting 1999, and Musch 2019, cited under General Overviews) and Franz Rosenzweig (see Samuelson 1998 and Musch 2019) discussed Buddhism in their respective oeuvre quite freely, while theologians were often more guarded (see Rapoport 2004 and Meir 2015). Jewish writers, as detailed in Small 1989 and Abramson 2001, often engaged with Buddhism in a less obvious manner in their writings. Melamed 1933 and Meir 2015 probe parallels between the ideas held by seminal Jewish thinkers and those of Buddhism.

  • Abramson, Edward. “Zen Buddhism and The Assistant: A Grocery as a Training Monastery.” In The Magic Worlds of Bernard Malamud. Edited by Evelyn Avery, 69–86. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An analysis of famous American-Jewish writer Bernard Malamud’s novel The Assistant, a tale of suffering and transformation among (Jewish and other) migrants in New York, according to which the grocery shop that much of the plot surrounds constitutes a training ground for Zen Buddhism.

    Find this resource:

  • Dean-Otting, Miriam. “Hugo Bergman, Leo Baeck and Martin Buber: Jewish Perspectives on Hinduism and Buddhism.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 1 (1999): 7–26.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A discussion of three important Jewish intellectuals, Martin Buber among them, which avoids the hagiographic aspects that shaped Friedman 1976.

    Find this resource:

  • Friedman, Maurice. “Martin Buber and Asia.” Philosophy East and West 26.4 (1976): 411–426.

    DOI: 10.2307/1398284Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author, a disciple of Buber, offers an apologetic yet informed discussion of the treatment of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism in Buber’s works on comparative mysticism that refashions his Orientalist views as interreligious understanding.

    Find this resource:

  • Meir, Ephraim. “Buddhist Thought and Heschel’s Jewish Philosophy: An Encounter.” In Interreligious Theology: Its Value and Mooring in Modern Jewish Philosophy. By Ephraim Meir, 50–61. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015.

    DOI: 10.1515/9783110430455-004Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author juxtaposes Heschel’s theology with Buddhism in his quest for an interreligious philosophy.

    Find this resource:

  • Melamed, Samuel M. Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    The author, a Zionist writer on and scholar of Jewish philosophy, argues that Spinoza was a crypto-Buddhist. This wild and sweeping book, eschewed by scholarship on both Spinoza and Buddhism, reworks many trotted-out topoi and seems a belated contribution to discourses from the nineteenth century, yet is an illustrative example of Jewish approaches to Buddhism in the first half of the twentieth century and rich source for scholars of intellectual history.

    Find this resource:

  • Rapoport, Jason. “Rav Kook and Nietzsche: A Preliminary Comparison of their Ideas on Religions, Christianity, Buddhism and Atheism.” The Torah U-Madda Journal 12 (2004): 99–129.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    Although Rav Kook mentioned Buddhism only twice in his writing, the author succeeds in fleshing out his views quite comprehensively, albeit at the cost of turning Rav Kook into a Nietzschean. As with many Jewish thinkers before him, Rav Kook equated Buddhism with pessimism in opposition to the life-affirming and optimistic qualities of Judaism.

    Find this resource:

  • Samuelson, Norbert. “Rosenzweig’s Philosophy of Buddhism.” Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies 1 (1998): 7–12.

    Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    A short but thorough discussion of the role of Buddhism in German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig’s complex opus magnum, Der Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption), first published in 1921.

    Find this resource:

  • Small, William. “In Buddha’s Footsteps. Feuchtwanger’s Jud Süß, Walther Rathenau, and the Path to the Soul.” German Studies Review 12 (1989): 469–485.

    DOI: 10.2307/1430649Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »

    An inquiry into the novel Jud Süß, a bestselling success in Weimar Germany by German-Jewish writer Lion Feuchtwanger, who harbored deep sympathies toward Buddhism and weaved Buddhist ideas into his novels on numerous occasions, as also detailed in Musch 2019 (cited under General Overviews).

    Find this resource:

Journals

So far, no journal is dedicated to the field of Jewish-Buddhist studies alone. However, journals from the field of Jewish studies have at times dedicated special issues to Judaism and Buddhism or related topics—see Kasimow 1999 and Riemer, et al. 2017—which remain major sources and have been cited repeatedly in this bibliography. Other journals from closely related fields, such as the Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies (this journal’s website has not been updated since 2015, even though new issues of the journal have appeared) and Buddhist-Christian Studies have published a long line of articles pertinent to Jewish-Buddhist studies as well.

back to top

Article

Up

Down