In The Jew in the Lotus, poet Roger Kamenetz uncovers the unlikely convergence of two of the world's ancient religions.
While accompanying eight Jewish delegates to Dharamsala, India, for a historic Buddhist-Jewish dialogue with the Dalai Lama, poet Rodger Kamenetz comes to understand the ways in which Jewish and Buddhist thought converge. Along the way, he speaks with leading rabbis and Jewish thinkers, including Zalman Schacter, Yitz and Blue Greenberg, a host of religious and disaffected Jews and Jewish Buddhists, and even Ram Dass and Richard Gere. This amazing journey through Tibetan Buddhism and Judaism leads Kamenetz to a renewed appreciation of his living Jewish roots.
Rodger Kamenetz is a poet and the author of the National Jewish Book Award winner Stalking Elijah. He is a professor of English and Religious studies at Louisiana State University. He currently lives in New Orleans with his wife.
"A book for anyone who feels the narrowness of a wholly secular life or who wonders about the fate of esoteric spiritual traditions in a world that seems bent on destroying or vulgarizing them. It is a narrative about an extraordinary moment in history, of course, but it is also the chronicle of Rodger Kamenetz's discovery of ... a more nourishing Judaism."
- New York Times Book Review
