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American JewBu
A revealing look at the Jewish American encounter with Buddhism
Today, many Jewish Americans are embracing a dual religious identity, practicing Buddhism while also staying connected to their Jewish roots. This book tells the story of Judaism's encounter with Buddhism in the United States, showing how it has given rise to new contemplative forms within American Judaism--and shaped the way Americans understand and practice Buddhism.
Taking readers from the nineteenth century to today, Emily Sigalow traces the history of these two traditions in America and explains how they came together. She argues that the distinctive social position of American Jews led them to their unique engagement with Buddhism, and describes how people incorporate aspects of both into their everyday lives. Drawing on a wealth of original in-depth interviews conducted across the nation, Sigalow explores how Jewish American Buddhists experience their dual religious identities. She reveals how Jewish Buddhists confound prevailing expectations of minority religions in America. Rather than simply adapting to the majority religion, Jews and Buddhists have borrowed and integrated elements from each other, and in doing so they have left an enduring mark on the American consciousness.
American JewBu highlights the leading role that American Jews have played in the popularization of meditation and mindfulness in the United States, and the profound impact that these two venerable traditions have had on one another.
Today, many Jewish Americans are embracing a dual religious identity, practicing Buddhism while also staying connected to their Jewish roots. This book tells the story of Judaism's encounter with Buddhism in the United States, showing how it has given rise to new contemplative forms within American Judaism--and shaped the way Americans understand and practice Buddhism.
Taking readers from the nineteenth century to today, Emily Sigalow traces the history of these two traditions in America and explains how they came together. She argues that the distinctive social position of American Jews led them to their unique engagement with Buddhism, and describes how people incorporate aspects of both into their everyday lives. Drawing on a wealth of original in-depth interviews conducted across the nation, Sigalow explores how Jewish American Buddhists experience their dual religious identities. She reveals how Jewish Buddhists confound prevailing expectations of minority religions in America. Rather than simply adapting to the majority religion, Jews and Buddhists have borrowed and integrated elements from each other, and in doing so they have left an enduring mark on the American consciousness.
American JewBu highlights the leading role that American Jews have played in the popularization of meditation and mindfulness in the United States, and the profound impact that these two venerable traditions have had on one another.
280 pages, Hardcover
Published November 12, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 13, 2019
This is the most up-to-date sociological examination of the phenomenon of American Jews becoming Buddhists, or at least encorporating Buddhism into their daily spiritual practice. It's probably the best book since Judith Linzer's "Torah and Dharma."
The book works chronologically, beginning with the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, where the first American publically converted to Buddhism - and he was, of course, Jewish. In the period between world wars, Buddhist development in the United States was hindered by anti-Asian racial sentiments, but some people became Zen Buddhists, and even Zen Buddhist priests, and even helped Japanese Americans during the internment period of WWII.
Post-War, there was anothe flowering in the 1960's and 70's, and Tibetan Buddhist began to emerge as Tibetan exiles fled to America, or young Jewish hippies traveled to India and Nepal. This would eventually lead to the famous conference between a group of Jews from different traditions and the Dalai Lama in the late 90's, and the book "The Jew in the Lotus" based on that confernece.
The author then turns to detailed sociological and ethnographic work interviewing Jews who have become Buddhists or spent some time as Buddhists, including Jews who are experts in vipassana meditation, and the various stages of their religious development. Many of these figures are now leaders in various American meditation traditions as well as bestselling authors.
On the whole this book is very fascinating and highly recommended.
The book works chronologically, beginning with the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, where the first American publically converted to Buddhism - and he was, of course, Jewish. In the period between world wars, Buddhist development in the United States was hindered by anti-Asian racial sentiments, but some people became Zen Buddhists, and even Zen Buddhist priests, and even helped Japanese Americans during the internment period of WWII.
Post-War, there was anothe flowering in the 1960's and 70's, and Tibetan Buddhist began to emerge as Tibetan exiles fled to America, or young Jewish hippies traveled to India and Nepal. This would eventually lead to the famous conference between a group of Jews from different traditions and the Dalai Lama in the late 90's, and the book "The Jew in the Lotus" based on that confernece.
The author then turns to detailed sociological and ethnographic work interviewing Jews who have become Buddhists or spent some time as Buddhists, including Jews who are experts in vipassana meditation, and the various stages of their religious development. Many of these figures are now leaders in various American meditation traditions as well as bestselling authors.
On the whole this book is very fascinating and highly recommended.
August 11, 2023
highly recommend. super informative
November 16, 2023
Emily Sigalow took an in-depth look into the phenomena of Jews embracing Buddhism in the United States. She began her dive with a humorly description, in form of a joke, but jumped right into sociological data to prove the point. Sigalow argued that theres a significant number of US Jews who have an affinity for Buddhist practices. She investigated the peculiarities of the melding of Judaism and Buddhism in the US, historically, sociologically, demographically, and methodologically. She recounted her predecessors’ insights, while also asking specific questions about how this mixture of thought came to be so prominent among such a small percentage of the US population. Through historical, theological, and demographic lenses, Sigalow wrestled with prior notions about the occurrence of JewBus in the US. However, Sigalow maintained that all of the previous assumptions about JewBus left out the major factor at hand, syncretism. In this particular context, in order to understand how Judaism and Buddhism became wedded into so many individuals’ lives, Sigalow recruited participants, took interviews, and studied ethnographic data and archives. She concluded that Judaism and Buddhism became intermingled in worldview and ethos among many people in the US, due to historical and social contexts. Sigalow presents all of this in a format that portrays how Jews in the US interpreted Buddhism, in the social context of the US.
Ultimately, Sigalow traced how Buddhism and Judaism collided among US social sectors historically, from 1875 to present-day, recounting various narratives and accounts. This unfolded in a process of modernization for Buddhism, through syncretism. Sigalow addresed spirituality, practice, identity, and discourse throughout her trekk of the story of the JewBus in the US. Then, Sigalow claimed that through educational avenues, many elite Jews in the eary twentieth century US, adopted Buddhist practices from discourse with and learning from their superiors, many of them Buddhist. Then, Sigalow traces the establishment of JewBus forward to the Civil Rights era, which was characterized by what was then, radical thoughts about social norms, including religion and ritual. This paved the way for the adoption of other culture’s rites, rituals, norms, and worldviews, like meditation, for example. Then, Sigalow addressed the 1990s, arguing that some influential Jews in the US argued for the adoption of various Buddhist practices and their beneficial uses. Sigalow then addressed the actual syncretisms that took place, allowing for the JewBu phenomenon to occur. She tackled how meditation became so common among the US population of Jews, how its practice was transformed, and how it became reflected into their identities and discourse. Sigalow claimed this occurred through a decentralization of the spiritual meaning of Buddhist meditation, and a prominent placing of it into Jewish life, instead. Sigalow modeled this in a materialistic and consumer fashion, showing how the concept of the “religious marketplace” functions in the US, claiming that many Jews found meditation aesthetically pleasant, different, and desirable, while molding it to their own beliefs in practice. Then, Sigalow explained how many JewBus use buddhist practices to compliment their Jewish faith, labeling them the “spiritually enriched” (Sigalow, 2022). She discussed the various political and religious parameters associated with these “spiritually enriched” JewBus, categorizing them into four spiritual divisions: individualism, voluntarism, egalitarianism, and pragmatism (Sigalow, 2022). She finished up with a conclusion on how these JewBus embrace the teachings of the Buddha, while maintaining their Jewish identity. She concluded that many of these JewBus see their buddhist practices as something learned and accomplished, while seeing their Jewish ones as denoted culturally or ethnically. She ended her book with a reflection on why and how the collision of Judaism and Buddhims ocurred as it did in the US, with a great analysis on the concepts of power relations, identity boundaries, and authority and agency.
I don’t necessarily like, nor dislike Sigalow’s take. However, I feel like I’ve already this book, because it’s eerily similar to Wendy Cadge’s book, Heartwood, dating eighteen years prior to Sigalow’s. The main difference is that while Cadge was overwhelmingly investigating the difference among various Buddhisms in the US, Sigalow was using those same comparisons to Jews and Buddhism in the US. The profound similarities in theoretical model are astounding. Sigalow only mentioned Cadge once in the Introduction and twice in the appendix, but I could tell she definitely read Heartwood. Considering this, I don’t find Sigalow’s take all that interesting, but perhaps it is useful. Both Cadge and Sigalow investigate multiculturalism, pluralism, appropriation, adoptation, migration, and interview religious practitioners that have experienced the effects of these concepts. Sigalow’s mention of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center was an instant clue into the rest of the book. That place is symbolic of her entire model and argument. Overall, Buddhism and it’s practices have found a home among many people in the US, and even globally, for its aesthetic qualities. It’s been fragmented, adopted, broken down, adopted, borrowed, and appropriated by millions of people. Sigalow just wrote about how it played out among the Jewish population in the US. However, I do have some profound agreements with her statement. Sigalow addressed the terminology of the word syncretism. I cannot emphasize enough how much I agree with her, on this concept. She condemned the negative connotation of the word and explained how it is a useful concept, calling for a continued use of it, while employing a condmemnation of its historical misuse. She even referenced other scholars on this issue, who have also called for a return for the correct usage and implementation of the word.
Ultimately, I think Sigalow’s theory works, because it considers a great many concepts that are relevant. I do not think it’s unique or groundbreaking, in any way, as I’ve mentioned. However, this continual analysis ought to persist across the board of religious studies. Syncretism, multiculturalism, pluralism, globalization, migration, and cooptation have a profound impact on the religious sphere of our lives, and thereby our studies. This same theoretical model of collecting history, weighing historical implications, analyzing narratives, inspecting time periods and waves, interviewing practitioners, collecting data, and drawing important conclusions– are all responsible scholarship. This can be done in any comparative religious study, ethnographic study, or cultural research of society. Making the pluralism known in acadmia is monumentally important for understanding our society. It’s good and honest work, in practice. This wholesome method could be used for understanding Indigenous Christians, for example. Understanding how their Indigenous beliefs infiltrated the Christian doctrine that was forced upon them, understanding how they rejected various Christian principles and formalities, and drawinf concrete conclusions about the historical context that allowed for all of it– is responsible research.
In conclusion, I think Sigalow has a place in North American religious studies. I do not think she should’ve named her book American JewBu, because she specifically only meant the US, used the term United States more than she used the term America, and it leaves out a significant number of people on this side of the planet, in interchanging those terms. However, her views on the usage and terminology of the word syncretism is spot on. She deserves a spot in North American religious studies on that premise, alone. Furthermore, globalization, the religious marketplace, pluralism, and multiculturalism are what our society is made of. It’s the grassroots of everything we know. That was her theoretical model, and it applies to all of us. So, she is deserving of being studied.
Ultimately, Sigalow traced how Buddhism and Judaism collided among US social sectors historically, from 1875 to present-day, recounting various narratives and accounts. This unfolded in a process of modernization for Buddhism, through syncretism. Sigalow addresed spirituality, practice, identity, and discourse throughout her trekk of the story of the JewBus in the US. Then, Sigalow claimed that through educational avenues, many elite Jews in the eary twentieth century US, adopted Buddhist practices from discourse with and learning from their superiors, many of them Buddhist. Then, Sigalow traces the establishment of JewBus forward to the Civil Rights era, which was characterized by what was then, radical thoughts about social norms, including religion and ritual. This paved the way for the adoption of other culture’s rites, rituals, norms, and worldviews, like meditation, for example. Then, Sigalow addressed the 1990s, arguing that some influential Jews in the US argued for the adoption of various Buddhist practices and their beneficial uses. Sigalow then addressed the actual syncretisms that took place, allowing for the JewBu phenomenon to occur. She tackled how meditation became so common among the US population of Jews, how its practice was transformed, and how it became reflected into their identities and discourse. Sigalow claimed this occurred through a decentralization of the spiritual meaning of Buddhist meditation, and a prominent placing of it into Jewish life, instead. Sigalow modeled this in a materialistic and consumer fashion, showing how the concept of the “religious marketplace” functions in the US, claiming that many Jews found meditation aesthetically pleasant, different, and desirable, while molding it to their own beliefs in practice. Then, Sigalow explained how many JewBus use buddhist practices to compliment their Jewish faith, labeling them the “spiritually enriched” (Sigalow, 2022). She discussed the various political and religious parameters associated with these “spiritually enriched” JewBus, categorizing them into four spiritual divisions: individualism, voluntarism, egalitarianism, and pragmatism (Sigalow, 2022). She finished up with a conclusion on how these JewBus embrace the teachings of the Buddha, while maintaining their Jewish identity. She concluded that many of these JewBus see their buddhist practices as something learned and accomplished, while seeing their Jewish ones as denoted culturally or ethnically. She ended her book with a reflection on why and how the collision of Judaism and Buddhims ocurred as it did in the US, with a great analysis on the concepts of power relations, identity boundaries, and authority and agency.
I don’t necessarily like, nor dislike Sigalow’s take. However, I feel like I’ve already this book, because it’s eerily similar to Wendy Cadge’s book, Heartwood, dating eighteen years prior to Sigalow’s. The main difference is that while Cadge was overwhelmingly investigating the difference among various Buddhisms in the US, Sigalow was using those same comparisons to Jews and Buddhism in the US. The profound similarities in theoretical model are astounding. Sigalow only mentioned Cadge once in the Introduction and twice in the appendix, but I could tell she definitely read Heartwood. Considering this, I don’t find Sigalow’s take all that interesting, but perhaps it is useful. Both Cadge and Sigalow investigate multiculturalism, pluralism, appropriation, adoptation, migration, and interview religious practitioners that have experienced the effects of these concepts. Sigalow’s mention of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center was an instant clue into the rest of the book. That place is symbolic of her entire model and argument. Overall, Buddhism and it’s practices have found a home among many people in the US, and even globally, for its aesthetic qualities. It’s been fragmented, adopted, broken down, adopted, borrowed, and appropriated by millions of people. Sigalow just wrote about how it played out among the Jewish population in the US. However, I do have some profound agreements with her statement. Sigalow addressed the terminology of the word syncretism. I cannot emphasize enough how much I agree with her, on this concept. She condemned the negative connotation of the word and explained how it is a useful concept, calling for a continued use of it, while employing a condmemnation of its historical misuse. She even referenced other scholars on this issue, who have also called for a return for the correct usage and implementation of the word.
Ultimately, I think Sigalow’s theory works, because it considers a great many concepts that are relevant. I do not think it’s unique or groundbreaking, in any way, as I’ve mentioned. However, this continual analysis ought to persist across the board of religious studies. Syncretism, multiculturalism, pluralism, globalization, migration, and cooptation have a profound impact on the religious sphere of our lives, and thereby our studies. This same theoretical model of collecting history, weighing historical implications, analyzing narratives, inspecting time periods and waves, interviewing practitioners, collecting data, and drawing important conclusions– are all responsible scholarship. This can be done in any comparative religious study, ethnographic study, or cultural research of society. Making the pluralism known in acadmia is monumentally important for understanding our society. It’s good and honest work, in practice. This wholesome method could be used for understanding Indigenous Christians, for example. Understanding how their Indigenous beliefs infiltrated the Christian doctrine that was forced upon them, understanding how they rejected various Christian principles and formalities, and drawinf concrete conclusions about the historical context that allowed for all of it– is responsible research.
In conclusion, I think Sigalow has a place in North American religious studies. I do not think she should’ve named her book American JewBu, because she specifically only meant the US, used the term United States more than she used the term America, and it leaves out a significant number of people on this side of the planet, in interchanging those terms. However, her views on the usage and terminology of the word syncretism is spot on. She deserves a spot in North American religious studies on that premise, alone. Furthermore, globalization, the religious marketplace, pluralism, and multiculturalism are what our society is made of. It’s the grassroots of everything we know. That was her theoretical model, and it applies to all of us. So, she is deserving of being studied.
February 21, 2021
A somewhat fascinating look into how Judaism seems to be strangling itself by tolerating a good deal of syncretism; in this case by way of Buddhism. Or perhaps one might question whether Jews even have a Jewish religion - they want to be something else. One feature of the author's work points out that the talk therapy career ladder is quite crowded with Jews, and lots of Jewish women.
March 15, 2022
This book was quite interesting. Though Sigalow focuses on the particular case of Jews converting to or incorporating Buddhist practices into their lives, she ends up making broader explorations such as the formation of modern American Buddhism or the use of mysticism to make more familiar religions more “exotic”. She tracks the long history of Jews converting to Buddhism and their outsize influence in presenting Buddhism to American audiences. She similarly tracks the secularization of American Buddhism and the way meditation became medicalized and completely divorced from its monastic Buddhists tradition. She then focuses on the identify formation of Buddhist Jews, exploring the limits of the syncretism and what that says about modern religious identity formation in the US, especially among the younger generations. Definitely well worth the read.
May 15, 2025
A Study of Jewish Buddhists in America
The term "JewBu" has been coined to refer to individuals of Jewish birth who have come to practice Buddhism to varying degrees. Many Americans who come to Buddhism are, in fact, Jewish. In her book, "American JewBu: Jews Buddhists, and Religious Change" (2019) initially written as a doctoral dissertation, Emily Sigalow offers a carefully researched and reasoned study of the varied engagement of Jewish people with Buddhism.
I have personal familiarity with the subject of this book. For many years, I studied Buddhism seriously at a Theravada monastery with a gifted and committed American teacher. Here at the outset there is a difference from most of the Jewish-Buddhist relationships Sigalow studies. She points out that American Buddhists focus almost entirely on meditative practice without study of Buddhist texts and doctrines. She also points out that the focus on meditation works something of a distortion of traditional Buddhist practice. Thus my Buddhist experience differed slightly from that she describes. Still, I recognized myself in her study. Interestingly, Sigalow herself is a practicing and committed Jew who had not had any Buddhist involvement before the extent of Jewish participation in Buddhism was brought to her attention early in graduate school and piqued her interest. She did an outstanding job in familiarizing herself with Buddhism and in her detailed, extensive study.
Broadly, Sigalow understands the Jewish Buddhist relationship as one of religious syncretism. Syncretism has had a bad reputation in some quarters, but I think she is correct. Syncretism means that two widely different religious traditions are brought together. Her view should be contrasted with the attempt to find commonalities between Judaism and Buddhism (although she finds some) and also and the view that there is something of pick and choose involved in the Jewish Buddhist relationship. She is right to use a syncretistic model, and I think it, syncretism is a good thing in the circumstances.
Sigalow's book is in two parts. The first part "Four Periods of Jewish Buddhist Engagement" is historical and includes a discussion of early Jewish-Buddhist relationships in the United States going back to the late 19th Century. I was unaware of this fascinating early history. The story picks up familiarity in the counterculture of the 1960s when many American seekers, discontented with American life, discovered Buddhism. Many of the leaders of the Buddhist movement were and are Jewish. Again and with exceptions they transformed Buddhism to make it palatable to Americans by focusing on meditation, which in Asia was not a widespread practice beyond monastics and scholars. I am of an age to be part of the counterculture and I recognize the description. As it happens my serious involvement in Buddhism came much later, and I was never a person of the Left or a member of the counterculture. I am rather conservative and moderate, but that fact does not vitiate Sigalow's account. At least in some cases, the attraction of Buddhism is different from what she allows.
The second part of the book is titled "Lived Experiences of Jewish Buddhists in the United States." Sigalow has done a lot of reading, interviewing, and thinking. She explores different ways of Buddhist Jewish involvement, including how Buddhist meditative practice was, in some quarters, adopted into Judaism by omitting the distinctively Buddhist trappings (such as sitting before a Buddha statue), She talks about different ways in which committed Jews (those who already had a strong Jewish identity) were able to learn from and work Buddhism into their religious lives, And in a related matter, she explores various ways that JewBus construct their own sense of personal identity that combines Judaism and what they have learned from Buddhism. Her study places a lot of emphasis on psychotherapy and on left wing American politics. In a sense I have been there and done that, but I find her emphasis somewhat overdone. I tried to keep separate from both in my experience, particularly leftist politics. Sigalow is certainly correct that Buiddhism appeals to intellectuals who have doubts about the existence of the Abrahamic God. I would be in that group, as I think most Americans would be who came to Buddhism. I don't think the attraction of Buddhism is either psychological or political leftist. Instead, as she quotes the work of scholars Rodney Stark and Robert Finke in a footnote towards the end of the book: "religion is concerned with the supernatural, everything else is secondary". I learned from the metaphysics and view of the world of Buddhism. Further, I think Sigalow throughout over-stresses the importance of personal identity, Jewish, Buddhist or otherwise. Buddhism tries, at the least, to soften the pulls and strengths of the concept of identity.
In the past few years, I have been religiously solitary and not active as a Jew, Buddhist or JewBu. I think about philosophical and religious questions a lot. Sigalow is broadly correct in saying that most people raised with a certain degree of Jewish exposure and identity have difficulty in giving it all up, even if they wished to do so. With that, I loved and benefitted by what I learned from Buddhism and try to adopt its teachings, not only the meditation practice, in what I do. I don't like labels and am not sure whether JewBu applies to me or not. But I was enjoyed this book and enjoyed thinking again about American Buddhism and American Judaism and about how their paths have become intertwined.
Robin Friedman
The term "JewBu" has been coined to refer to individuals of Jewish birth who have come to practice Buddhism to varying degrees. Many Americans who come to Buddhism are, in fact, Jewish. In her book, "American JewBu: Jews Buddhists, and Religious Change" (2019) initially written as a doctoral dissertation, Emily Sigalow offers a carefully researched and reasoned study of the varied engagement of Jewish people with Buddhism.
I have personal familiarity with the subject of this book. For many years, I studied Buddhism seriously at a Theravada monastery with a gifted and committed American teacher. Here at the outset there is a difference from most of the Jewish-Buddhist relationships Sigalow studies. She points out that American Buddhists focus almost entirely on meditative practice without study of Buddhist texts and doctrines. She also points out that the focus on meditation works something of a distortion of traditional Buddhist practice. Thus my Buddhist experience differed slightly from that she describes. Still, I recognized myself in her study. Interestingly, Sigalow herself is a practicing and committed Jew who had not had any Buddhist involvement before the extent of Jewish participation in Buddhism was brought to her attention early in graduate school and piqued her interest. She did an outstanding job in familiarizing herself with Buddhism and in her detailed, extensive study.
Broadly, Sigalow understands the Jewish Buddhist relationship as one of religious syncretism. Syncretism has had a bad reputation in some quarters, but I think she is correct. Syncretism means that two widely different religious traditions are brought together. Her view should be contrasted with the attempt to find commonalities between Judaism and Buddhism (although she finds some) and also and the view that there is something of pick and choose involved in the Jewish Buddhist relationship. She is right to use a syncretistic model, and I think it, syncretism is a good thing in the circumstances.
Sigalow's book is in two parts. The first part "Four Periods of Jewish Buddhist Engagement" is historical and includes a discussion of early Jewish-Buddhist relationships in the United States going back to the late 19th Century. I was unaware of this fascinating early history. The story picks up familiarity in the counterculture of the 1960s when many American seekers, discontented with American life, discovered Buddhism. Many of the leaders of the Buddhist movement were and are Jewish. Again and with exceptions they transformed Buddhism to make it palatable to Americans by focusing on meditation, which in Asia was not a widespread practice beyond monastics and scholars. I am of an age to be part of the counterculture and I recognize the description. As it happens my serious involvement in Buddhism came much later, and I was never a person of the Left or a member of the counterculture. I am rather conservative and moderate, but that fact does not vitiate Sigalow's account. At least in some cases, the attraction of Buddhism is different from what she allows.
The second part of the book is titled "Lived Experiences of Jewish Buddhists in the United States." Sigalow has done a lot of reading, interviewing, and thinking. She explores different ways of Buddhist Jewish involvement, including how Buddhist meditative practice was, in some quarters, adopted into Judaism by omitting the distinctively Buddhist trappings (such as sitting before a Buddha statue), She talks about different ways in which committed Jews (those who already had a strong Jewish identity) were able to learn from and work Buddhism into their religious lives, And in a related matter, she explores various ways that JewBus construct their own sense of personal identity that combines Judaism and what they have learned from Buddhism. Her study places a lot of emphasis on psychotherapy and on left wing American politics. In a sense I have been there and done that, but I find her emphasis somewhat overdone. I tried to keep separate from both in my experience, particularly leftist politics. Sigalow is certainly correct that Buiddhism appeals to intellectuals who have doubts about the existence of the Abrahamic God. I would be in that group, as I think most Americans would be who came to Buddhism. I don't think the attraction of Buddhism is either psychological or political leftist. Instead, as she quotes the work of scholars Rodney Stark and Robert Finke in a footnote towards the end of the book: "religion is concerned with the supernatural, everything else is secondary". I learned from the metaphysics and view of the world of Buddhism. Further, I think Sigalow throughout over-stresses the importance of personal identity, Jewish, Buddhist or otherwise. Buddhism tries, at the least, to soften the pulls and strengths of the concept of identity.
In the past few years, I have been religiously solitary and not active as a Jew, Buddhist or JewBu. I think about philosophical and religious questions a lot. Sigalow is broadly correct in saying that most people raised with a certain degree of Jewish exposure and identity have difficulty in giving it all up, even if they wished to do so. With that, I loved and benefitted by what I learned from Buddhism and try to adopt its teachings, not only the meditation practice, in what I do. I don't like labels and am not sure whether JewBu applies to me or not. But I was enjoyed this book and enjoyed thinking again about American Buddhism and American Judaism and about how their paths have become intertwined.
Robin Friedman
November 27, 2024
The book is written like a graduate sociology student presenting the research results of an ethnographic study, complete with interview questions and survey responses. Which is exactly what it is. I'd have preferred a more distilled summary focusing on the conclusions, rather than the strict academic approach in which the unnecessary details often overwhelmed the interesting points.
April 21, 2020
Excellent!
October 11, 2022
Nice overview, interesting insight, lengthy narration.
October 12, 2024
Quite intriguing; I learned a lot and have more questions. ;-)
September 29, 2025
I felt so seen. Great read if you are a meditating Jew and don’t have a large (or even small) community of JewBu’s to connect to.
Read
November 5, 2025*syncretic*
March 14, 2022
Dry, boring and scholarly.
January 3, 2020
3.5-gave her the benefit of the doubt. It's a well-written scholarly report, parts of which were of more interest to me than others. The section on how 2nd generation Jews regarded their culture and religion, as well as their approach to spirituality through Buddhist meditation, was of particular interest to me.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews