Reading In-Betweenness Jewish Buddhist Autobiographies and the Self-Display of Interstitiality

Abstract

The phenomenon of the Jewish Buddhists emerged in the second half of the 20th century in America as a result of the encounter between the Western-bound globalization of Buddhism, the counterculture, and, in a post-World War II and post-Holocaust cultural context, the increasing secularization of Western Jews. Jewish Buddhists are Jewish-born individuals who connect to both Judaism and Buddhism. Neither converts nor syncretists, they lead spiritual lives that dwell in-between two symbolic spaces. How are we to make sense of this unique religious stance? What does it produce, and what place does it take within American Jewish life today? In this article, using Homi Bhabha’s concept of interstitial space, I suggest that the Jewish Buddhists’ in-betweenness is a space of creativity from which new hybrid systems of thought and practice have evolved. Following the suggestion of philosopher Judith Butler, I view the literary production of Jewish Buddhists as social discourses that enable the researcher to decipher the ways in which they articulate their own trajectories and their new teachings. Reading the books of four Jewish American Jewish Buddhist teachers through the lens of critical discourse analysis, I describe the way these individuals who have chosen to invest interstitial space between Judaism and Buddhism have become, in Fredrik Barth’s terms, “agents of change” within the Jewish religious field.