@article{AlbeckGidron2018, author = {Albeck-Gidron, Rachel}, title = {At Opposite Ends of Asia - Contact between East Asian Culture and Modern Hebrew Literature from the Late Nineteenth Century until Today. A Historiographical and Linguistic Study}, series = {Sprache Deutsch PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {Sprache Deutsch PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408931}, pages = {95 -- 118}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This article deals with contact between East Asian thought and modern Hebrew Literature from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century, until today. In the first part, the article suggests that from a historiographical perspective, one may outline three waves of contact between these two cultural phenomena, at opposite ends of Asia. In the first wave, which began in the early twentieth century, Asian influence on Hebrew literature written in Europe was mediated mainly through the philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The second wave, which emerged in the 1950s, relates to the influence of the leaders of the Beat Generation, who, in turn, were influenced by modernist poetry in English, which was colored by contact with Asian poetry. The third wave is part of the glocal New Age phenomenon and its appropriation of certain Buddhist traits. The second part of the article presents several theoretical possibilities of symbioses between cultures, as they appear within language. The third part presents the symptomatic example of the work of contemporary Hebrew writer Yoel Hoffmann, who appears to be a representative of the second wave; however, his work maintains dialogue with the first wave, and its current popularity is part of the third wave. Hoffmann's work serves as an example of how to apply the theoretical possibilities presented in the second part of the article, as an instance of literary contact between two cultures and their respective languages.}, language = {en} } @article{Haussig2018, author = {Haußig, Hans-Michael}, title = {Indische Religionen als Gegenstand religionsphilosophischer Entw{\"u}rfe}, series = {PaRDeS : Journal of the Association of Jewish Studies [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, volume = {2017}, journal = {PaRDeS : Journal of the Association of Jewish Studies [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408828}, pages = {55 -- 72}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Im 19. Jahrhundert erschienen erstmalig grundlegende theologische bzw. religionsphilosophische Entw{\"u}rfe, die sich darum bem{\"u}hten, unter dem Einfluss der maßgeblichen philosophischen Systeme ihrer Zeit das Judentum neu zu deuten und in den Rahmen der allgemeinen Menschheitsgeschichte einzuordnen. Es waren insbesondere zwei Vertreter des Reformjudentums, Salomon Formstecher (1808-1889) und Samuel Hirsch (1815-1889), die im Abstand von nur einem Jahr (1841 bzw. 1842) zwei dementsprechende Entw{\"u}rfe vorlegten. Beide Autoren streben eine wissenschaftliche Sichtweise auf das Judentum an und weisen darin eine Gemeinsamkeit auf, dass es ihrer Ansicht nach neben diesem als einzige Religion praktisch nur das Heidentum gibt. Judentum und Heidentum stehen in einem grundlegenden Gegensatz zueinander. Im Rahmen der Ausf{\"u}hrung ihrer These gehen sowohl Formstecher als auch Hirsch in unterschiedlichem Maße auf die indischen Religionen ein. Der Aufsatz will die Behandlung der indischen Religionen im Rahmen der Auffassungen beider Autoren {\"u}ber das Heidentum untersuchen.}, language = {de} } @article{Sigalow2018, author = {Sigalow, Emily}, title = {From Jewish Prominence to Buddhist Prominence}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408943}, pages = {119 -- 131}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The 1920s witnessed a growing appearance of individual American Jews- largely from wealthy and prominent families - who received training by Asian teachers and pursued Buddhist practices in Asian-founded Buddhist groups. Some of these American Jews gained prominence and leadership status in Buddhist communities and also ran their own semi-established Buddhist groups, with limited success. The social position and material success of these Jewish Buddhists allowed them the time and means to study and practice Buddhism. This paper illustrates these developments through the story of Julius Goldwater, a member of the prominent German Jewish family that included Senator Barry Goldwater. After encountering Buddhism in Hawaii and being ordained in Kyoto, Goldwater moved to Los Angeles to become one of the first European-American Jodo Shinshu ministers in America. This paper demonstrates how he was an early convert, teacher, and wartime proponent of American Buddhism.}, language = {en} } @article{Musch2018, author = {Musch, Sebastian}, title = {Linking the Jewish People to India}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408892}, pages = {41 -- 54}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This article explores the little-known author Friedrich Korn (1803-1850). Korn developed a theory of universal revelation which, among other things, claimed that the Jewish people descended from India. His theory is an amalgamation of the Romantic ideas about India, the historical criticisms as expounded by David Friedrich Strauß, and the desire to see his own conversion from Judaism to Protestantism as congruent with the historical progress of religion. Situating Korn in the intellectual context and theological debates of his time allows us to take a closer look at how he tried to reconcile many opposing stances, namely arguing for a genealogical lineage between India and the Jewish people, while calling for the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity, and steadfastly believing in universal revelation, while holding on to the tools of historical criticism. These different positions made Korn an untimely author, out of sync with his peers and the scholarly attitude towards Judaism, India, and religion in general.}, language = {en} } @article{Marks2018, author = {Marks, Richard G.}, title = {David d'Beth Hillel and Jacob Sapir}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408884}, pages = {19 -- 39}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Two 19th century rabbis born in Vilna and educated in its raditionalist rationalism interacted with India's temple Hinduism in different ways. Both were fascinated with Hindu worship and images, but David d'Beth Hillel entered temples and disputed with priests, while Jacob Sapir observed from outside, composing written pictures of Hindu images using a biblical vocabulary of abomination. D'Beth Hillel employed Hebrew linguistics to uncover secret meanings of Hindu words. However, both travelers interpreted Hindu religiosity similarly, as idolatrous worship. They explained this Hinduism historically as a survival of Judean idolatry brought to India by Jewish migrants, or as a survival from an ancient culture of idolatry that once filled the world. Both rabbis also perceived Jewish elements in Hinduism, which they explained from Jewish migrations of the past. The similarities in their conceptualizations of Hinduism point to a common Jewish worldview that constructed the world as opposing realms of revelation and idolatry, and also to common theories about how cultural change occurs through survivals, corruptions, and diffusion.}, language = {en} } @article{Weiss2018, author = {Weiss, Aleš}, title = {Buddhism as a Tool of Polemic and Self-definition among German Rabbis in the 19th and early 20th Century}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408918}, pages = {73 -- 93}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This paper describes an almost forgotten chapter in the relatively short history of Jewish- Buddhist interactions. The popularization of Buddhism in Germany in the second half of 19th century, effected mainly by its positive appraisal in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, made it a common referent for both critics of Judaism and Christianity as well as their defenders. At the same time, Judaism was viewed by many as a historically antiquated religion and Jewish elements in Christianity were regarded as impediments to the progress of European religiosity and culture. Schopenhauerian conception of "pessimistic" Buddhism and "optimistic" Judaism as the two most distant religious ideas was proudly appropriated by many Jewish thinkers. These Jews portrayed Buddhism as an anti-worldly and anti-social religion of egoistic individuals who seek their own salvation (i. e. annihilation into Nothingness), the most extreme form of pessimism and asceticism which negates every being, will, work, social structures and transcendence. Judaism, in contrast, represented direct opposites of all the aforementioned characteristics. In comparisons to Buddhism, Judaism stood out as a religion which carried the most needed social and psychological values for a healthy modern society: decisive affirmation of the world, optimism, social activity, co-operation with others, social egalitarianism, true charitability, and religious purity free from all remnants of polytheism, asceticism, and the inefficiently excessive moral demands ascribed to both Buddhism and Christianity. Through the analysis of texts by Ludwig Philippson, Ludwig Stein, Leo Baeck, Max Eschelbacher, Juda Bergmann, Fritz-Leopold Steinthal, Elieser David and others, this paper tries to show how the image of Buddhism as an antithesis to Judaism helped the German Jewish reform thinkers in defining the "essence of Judaism" and in proving to both Jewish and Christian audiences its enduring meaningfulness and superiority for the modern society.}, language = {en} } @article{Niculescu2018, author = {Niculescu, Mira}, title = {JewBus Are Not What They Used to Be}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408965}, pages = {149 -- 161}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The success of Buddhism in the West, and in America in particular, since the middle of the twentieth century, gave birth to a new hyphenated religious phenomenon: the Jewish-Buddhists. While a growing number of scholars have been addressing this phenomenon, all of the studies published so far speak of "Jewish-Buddhists" as if they could be described in the same way it was in the seventies. In this paper, I take issue with the monolithic, reified approach towards the phenomenon of the "Jewish-Buddhists", and will try to show their evolution from their early days at the dawn of the emerging Counter Culture until today. Following findings derived from diachronic and ethnographic fieldworks, conducted since 2009, I will suggest that this evolution has undergone three main phases, which I call the three "ages": the age of challenging, the age of claiming, and the age of re-claiming.}, language = {en} } @article{LandauRageth2018, author = {Landau, David and Rageth, Nina}, title = {Indian Sufism in Israel}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408972}, pages = {163 -- 180}, year = {2018}, abstract = {This paper explores Indian Sufi influences in Shye Ben Tzur's music. Ben Tzur is a Jewish Israeli musician who composes Sufi poetry in Hebrew and plays it to qawwālī music, the traditional North Indian Sufi music. Ben Tzur's songs are devotional and there are many Sufi references that invoke Islamic terminology. His music has been reviewed in numerous newspapers and his Jewish identity, coupled with Sufi themes, evokes questions regarding religious belonging. Even though Ben Tzur openly discusses Sufi influences, his music has remained uncontroversial. This article interprets this as a sign that the symbolic repertoire of Ben Tzur's music evokes associations with India and not with Islam and more specifically with India as a spiritual rather than religious space. The image of India as a spiritual land manages to subsume references to Islam and render them part of the "mystical East" allowing Ben Tzur's audience to consume Muslim themes outside Middle Eastern politics.}, language = {en} } @article{Ariel2018, author = {Ariel, Yaakov S.}, title = {A New Kind of Jew}, series = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, journal = {PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung f{\"u}r J{\"u}dische Studien [23 (2017)] = JewBus, Jewish Hindus \& other Jewish Encounters with East Asian Religions}, number = {23}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-418-0}, issn = {1614-6492}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408952}, pages = {133 -- 148}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The article examines Allen Ginsberg's spiritual path, and places his interest in Asian religions within larger cultural agendas and life choices. While identifying as a Jew, Ginsberg wished to transcend beyond his parents' orbit and actively sought to create an inclusive, tolerant, and permissive society where persons such as himself could live and create at ease. He chose elements from the Christian, Jewish, Native-American, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions, weaving them together into an ever-growing cultural and spiritual quilt. The poet never underwent a conversion experience or restricted his choices and freedoms. In Ginsberg's understanding, Buddhism was a universal, non-theistic religion that meshed well with an individualist outlook, and worked toward personal solace and mindfulness. He and other Jews saw no contradiction between enchantment with Buddhism and their Jewish identity.}, language = {en} }