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| Buddhism and American Judaism: Interreligious Enrichment, or a ‘Twain Crash? In an age of “Buddhist synagogues” and “Zen rabbis,” one has to wonder what is happening to our traditions, to our spirituality, to American culture. Jewish-Buddhist interactions in America are traced back to the breakdown of traditional Jewish neighborhoods in the 1950s, to the “flower power” and social activism of the 1960s, and the inwardness of the 1970s. Whether we consider it an interreligious enrichment of an enervating syncretism, Buddhism is having its effect on American Judaism. This influence is felt most acutely at the extremes of American Jewish life: overtly, in the Jewish Renewal Movement, and covertly, in Orthodoxy, especially via ba’ale teshuva (newly-observant Jews). And from its position on the left and right, Buddhism’s impact is slowly but surely making its way toward the mainstream of Conservative and Reform Judaisms.  |
