Talk:Jewish Buddhist

[Disputed]
I've found at least three problems with the article:

1. "although modern Reform Jews have historically opposed [meditation] in favor of a more rational, intellectual form of worship" - Reform Jews have had no issue of which I am aware with the practice of meditation. They've been uncomfortable in the past with Jewish mysticism (as have Conservative Jews and the Modern Orthodox), but even this is going by the wayside - and in any case, meditation is not necessarily attached to any form of mysticism.

2. "In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is an enlightened person who has put off entry to paradise in order to help others gain enlightenment." - The goal of Buddhism is to attain enlightenment and enter into Nirvana (Skt.; Pali "Nibbana"), a state beyond birth and death. A Bodhisattva (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva) is a being who has attained one of the bhumis, or stages of enlightenment, but has chosen to forestall full enlightenment in order to remain in the world to work to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment and liberation from samsara, the cycle of birth and death. Use of the term "Paradise" implies heaven or a heaven-like state, which is not the goal. (There are Pure Lands, and taking rebirth in one of them can be a goal, but it is a way-station, rebirth in which precludes rebirth in the human realm or one of the "lower realms" while one continues to work toward achieving enlightenment.)

3. "some scholars of the Bible have speculated that Christ lived through several past lives, including as the pre-Israelite king Melchizedek and the Asian monk Amitabha" - This is WAY off. Amitabha was/is not a monk, but a Buddha who presides over the Pure Land of Dewachen (Tib.; Skt. "Sukhavati"), which is believed to be the easiest Pure Land in which to take rebirth and is the temporary goal of practitioners of Pure Land Buddhism (there are also Pure Land practices within Tibetan Buddhism that are meant to facilitate rebirth in Dewachen). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism

Also, I don't know of any reputable academic scholars who either advocate for Christ's having had multiple lives, or who believe the New Testament is implying as much. Jeyges (talk) 15:49, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

[Untitled]
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the article as is. Like any neologism, "Jubu" will not be accepted by some of the people it's applied to, and that should be noted.

Further, though the article claims there is "no coherent philosophy" behind "Jubuism", I do get the impression that it's saying most "Jubus" are somewhere between Judaism and Buddhism. I see no particular reason to believe that Jewish converts to Buddism retain any more of their ancestral religion than converts from any other religion. --Saforrest 19:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It's more of a social phenomenon that grew out of the anecdotal observation that a disproportionate number of Western Buddhists are of Jewish extraction. I know that I do need a cite for that but, as I said, it started off as an anecdotal observation among Western Buddhists. I don't know if anyone's actually done the sort of statistical work that would bear this out with greater scholarly rigor. For anecdotal accounts, there's Sylvia Boorstein's Funny You Don't Look Buddhist and Roger Kamenetz's The Jew in the Lotus.
 * JFD 17:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that when it's used, it typically refers more to Jews who have chosen to retain some sort of ethnic or religious identity as Jews (up to and possibly including observing Jewish holidays and ritual laws) while embracing the practice or philosophy of Buddhism, rather than just any Jewish convert. A Jew who converts to Buddhism and choses not to retain any portion of their Jewish identity (doesn't self-identify as a Jew) probably would not refer to themselves as a Jubu.  The term sort of floats around the Tricycle crowd in discussing the phenomenon of Jewish conversion and interest in Buddhism; it's certainly not a term that your average Buddhist off the street would be familiar with, assuming that that street wasn't in San Francisco or the American Northeast.  --Clay Collier 12:26, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The article is rather incoherent. What the term Jubu generally refers to are people who practice muddhist rituals and customs, but beleive in Jewish Divinity and the Jewish god. Most Jubu'sthat I have talked to describe themselves as being both Jewish and Buddhist, seeing as (they argue) there is no divne being in Buddhism, the two are not contradictory and complement eachother. I have neverbefore heard of Jubu referrign to a buddhiost of jewish heritage.71.32.52.92 23:27, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I would actually take issue with the redirection of BuJew here. While I'm always forgetting which is which, one is usually reserved for individuals born and perhaps raised Jewish but self-identify primarily as Buddhist (although possibly while admitting or retaining certain Jewish cultural practices), the other is usually reserved for people who identify primarily or exclusively as Jewish but who adopt certain Buddhist practices (perhaps even in the spirit of Gautama's admonition that he was not introducing a new religion and one shouldn't leave one's native religion). While it is true that some see Jubu and Bujew as interchangeable, my sense is that those in the midst of these cultural practices and differences maintain a distinction. Hence a more useful encyclopedia would reflect the distinction as perceived by those closest to the identity rather than running them together for the sake of reflecting a view that is less familiar with the situation. 128.205.173.76 20:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC) - Ken

Pema Chödrön is a Jew?
Pema Chödrön is a Jew? Do you have reference to it? Like a book or some online biography? - Nearfar 06:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Article move - Jubu
I'd like to suggest moving the page from Jubus to Jubu. One detail has been bugging me since I first stumbled across the page: the plural in the title. Most articles dealing with ethnic or religious groups do not list themselves in the plural form, but in the singular (Latter Day Saint, etc.). "Jubus" is even slightly difficult to read in the plural - "Jubu" looks like a neologism, whereas "Jubus" looks like a Latin term, requiring a different set of pronunciation rules. Every time I see the plural out of context, I want to pronounce it with two short "u"s (as in but), and a final [s] rather than a final [z]. Imagine Jeebus, but beginning with the word "just". sigh. Is these too insignificant to warrant a page move to Jubu? If there's no counterargument, it's a week until I'm WP:BOLD. samwaltz 15:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

David ben-Gurion
Israe's 1st prime minister was a buddhist. he said that buddhism is not a religion but a way of life which doesn't contradict the jewish faith. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.176.38.148 (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

First sentence
The first sentence reads:

"A Jewish Buddhist (also Jubu or Buju) is a person with a Jewish ethnic or religious background who practices forms of Buddhist meditation and spirituality." ''

No source has been provided asserting that a Jewish Buddhist has "a Jewish ethnic or religious background." This is original research. No source supports such an assertion.

That sentence can be rewritten to read as follows:

"A Jewish Buddhist (also Jubu or Buju) is a person with a Jewish background who practices forms of Buddhist meditation and spirituality."

The above version of the opening sentence makes none of the assertions (lacking in sources) about Jewish ethnic or Jewish religious background that were previously in the first sentence. Bus stop (talk) 01:57, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Addition of Population Numbers
I've added a paragraph on how many Jews are found in the US Buddhist community, based on numbers gleaned from the 2009 survey run by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

What is specific about Jews?
A lot of people from other religions "practice[s] forms of Buddhist meditation and spirituality". If that is the defining element, than this article should be about all such people who carry on observing their own religious habits while at the same time "practic[ing] forms of Buddhist meditation and spirituality". Rui &#39;&#39;Gabriel&#39;&#39; Correia (talk) 20:32, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

There is a significant amount of Jewish Buddhist practitioners compared to other religions.

The article is interesting because of the number of Buddhist practitioners of Jewish origin. Almost none of these people still observe Jewish rituals. Hence, for two reasons, this deserves to be an article in it's own right, rather than an article about Buddhist practitioners of other religious origin. Frankfebruary (talk) 17:18, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

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Unsourced almost entirely
Moved here per WP:PRESERVE. Per WP:BURDEN, don't restore without finding RS, checking the content against them, and citing them. thx

The first recorded instance of an American being converted to Buddhism on American soil occurred at the 1893 World Conference on Religions. The convert was a Jewish man named Charles Strauss, who declared himself a Buddhist at a public lecture that followed the conference. Strauss later became an author and leading expositor of Buddhism in the West. After World War II, Western interest in Buddhism increased, often associated with the Beat generation. Zen was the most important influence at that time. A new wave of Jews became involved with Buddhism in the late 1960s. Prominent teachers included Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg who founded the Insight Meditation Society, Sylvia Boorstein who teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, all of whom learned vipassana meditation primarily through Thai teachers. Another generation of Jews as Buddhist teachers emerged in the early 2000s, including author Taro Gold, expounding Japanese traditions such as Nichiren Buddhism. According to the Ten Commandments and classical Jewish law (halacha), it is forbidden for any Jew to worship any deity other than the God of Israel – specifically by bowing, offering incense, sacrifices and/or poured libations. It is likewise forbidden to join or serve in another religion because doing so would render such an individual an apostate or an idol worshipper. Since most Buddhists do not consider the Buddha to have been a god, Jewish Buddhists do not consider Buddhist practice to be worship. This is despite some practices including incense and food offerings made to a statue of the Buddha, and both prostration and bowing done before a statue of the Buddha. In addition, many Buddhists (particularly Theravada Buddhists) do not worship the Buddha but instead "revere" and "express gratitude" for the Buddha's (and all buddhas') accomplishment and compassionate teaching (that is, discovering and teaching the Dharma so others might be released from suffering and achieve Nirvana).
 * Origins==
 * Practice==

-- Jytdog (talk) 23:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Ram Das - Richard Alpert!!
Arguably THE most famous Western spiritual teacher. Whilst technically in a Hindu tradition, his teaching is heavily Buddhist. He even wrote the preface to one version of the Dhammapada - the sayings of the Buddha. Frankfebruary (talk) 17:42, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Awful lot of original research here
The article speaks about Jewish Buddhists as if they have a uniform practice, which is clearly not the case, as the Jewish Buddhists mentioned here are of many, many different schools of Buddhism and relation to Judaism. The "practice" section is a real problem here, since it's full of original research WP:OR about some concept of Jewish Buddhist practice. The section also does not cite any sources, so I've taken the liberty to remove it.

I'm now going to go through and remove any further unnecessary information, since this article is seemingly supposed to be about a demographic phenomenon and nothing more. Another article comparing the two religions, called Buddhism and Judaism, would be much more appropriate for the information about their overlapping or similar beliefs. (see: Buddhism and Christianity) In fact, I may go ahead and do the work of creating such a page and migrating that belief/ideas information there and keep only the demographically-relevant information here. Bagabondo (talk) 09:31, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I ended up doing what I described, so now all the information on the overlap of beliefs (including the “practice” part) is in Buddhism and Judaism. Bagabondo (talk) 10:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Chinese Jewish Buddhists
I have not come across any books saying this for sure. But from my research on other Chinese religious topics, I'm sure there has to have been some Jewish Buddhists there or in another country before 1893. GoutComplex (talk) 22:02, 13 May 2023 (UTC)