So last night was the first night of Hanukkah and the smell of sweet dough frying in vats of hot oil positively permeates Tel Aviv. For those of you who didn't get the connection between the first and second clauses of the previous sentence, in Israel the traditional holiday food is jelly doughnuts - balls of deep fried dough injected with jam. They look just like these things, which are called - strangely - Berliner Ballen. In Hebrew they are called sufganiyot (sing. sufganiya). Perhaps sufganiyot were introduced to the local diet by immigrants from Germany?
As my lovely pal Allison points out, the traditional leaden blob of dough filled with pinkish jelly of uncertain - though definitely artificial - provenance has evolved significantly over the years to keep up with the travel-broadened Israeli customer's increasingly demanding palate. I'm waiting for her verdict on the tequila-spiked sufganiya from the Roladin bakery chain; meanwhile I remain loyal to the gorgeous, crispy little creations from Lechem Erez - purveyor of cutting-edge carbohydrates, from rosemary foccacia to sourdough-olive bread and beyond.
The bakeries have turned over whole sections of floorspace exclusively to stacks and stacks of constantly replenished trays of sufganiyot. People are lining up to purchase them by the dozen - for school, office and home parties. I wonder how many get consumed, nation-wide, each Hanukkah?
Last year at this time I was having a what-in-the-world-was-I-thinking short-lived romance with a perpetually impecunious musician who had long hair and a charming smile. He decided to earn a bit of quick cash during the week of Hanukkah by working a swing shift at the Lechem Erez factory, making sufganiyot. The musician inevitably arrived home reeking of oil, and the heavy smell clung to his hair despite multiple shampooings. I was so grossed out by the odour that I couldn't touch a single doughnut for the duration of the holiday. Which was probably a good thing, since they are rumoured to have around 500 calories each.
JUBUs
No, they're not gummy candies. They're Jewish Buddhists - and they're simply everywhere. I first became aware of the JUBUs about 10 years ago, when I read The Jew in the Lotus - which is not actually a book about the JUBU phenomenon, but rather a fascinating description of a trip undertaken by a group of Jewish religious leaders, representing all the main streams of Judaism including Orthodoxy, to Dharamsala, India, for a meeting with the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan spiritual leader had come to the conclusion that his people were going to be in exile indefinitely, and he wanted to consult with the Jews - those experts on survival in exile - on how to maintain his people's religious, cultural and spiritual identity outside their Chinese-occupied homeland.
I was fascinated by this book - all the more so because I knew Blu Greenberg, a leader of the Orthodox feminist movement, and wife of well-known New York rabbi Yitz Greenberg: Blu and her husband were among the group that went to Dharamsala, and there's an amusing anecdote in the book about the difficulties she faced in keeping strictly kosher while travelling.
I decided to write a paper on the JUBU phenomenon. And a funny thing happened on the way through the research: I learned some pretty interesting stuff.
It seems that around 75% of the American Buddhist leadership is of Jewish origin. Among them are Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield and Ram Dass, who were pioneers in American Buddhism way back in the 1960s.
Sylvia Boorstein wrote a book with the catchy title, "That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On being a faithful Jew and a passionate Buddhist" . Mark Epstein, a Harvard-educated psychologist and practicing Zen Buddhist, wrote a book about his melding of traditional Western psychology with a Zen Buddhist approach in his book, "Thoughts Without a Thinker." These are just two relatively recent examples of the vast number of books written by JUBUs.
I phoned Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review , figuring that - since nearly all the surnames on their editorial board ended with "berg" or "stein" - they must have a lot of interesting information about the JUBUs to offer. Oh yes, indeed, said the soft-spoke young man who answered the phone - but the thing is that we're terribly busy preparing our special Christmas edition right now so could you call back in January?
The Jewish Buddhists were busy getting ready for Jesus's birthday. Okaaay.
Next stop: Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, the very dedicated, warm and intelligent leader of the Anshe Chesed synagogue on West End Avenue and 101st Street. Rabbi Strassfeld told me that Buddhism had become so popular among his congregants that he'd introduced Vipassana meditation to the Wednesday morning shacharit (dawn - but don't take that literally) prayers.
And then I went to talk to Ari L. Goldman, former New York Times reporter (religious affairs), author of "The Search for God at Harvard," and dean of students at Columbia University's graduate School of Journalism. He's also a very thoughtful and intelligent guy, and a practicing Orthodox Jew; Ari dismissed Sylvia Boorstein as "a flake" and expressed general disapproval for the bizarrely syncretic aspects of the JUBU phenomenon.
At the time I was inclined to be equally disparaging, but today I'm just bemused and curious. The JUBUs exist, and that's it. I'm certainly not going to tell any group of people that they're not allowed to believe in something, or that they can't follow a certain lifestyle that harms no-one and makes them happy.
In Israel I go to meditation retreats with lots of fellow Israelis, and we certainly don't think of ourselves as JUBUs: we're just people who are attracted to aspects of Buddhist philosophy and the benefits of meditation. Meditation retreats are a sort of mental housecleaning exercise. You calm the mind, gain some clarity and perhaps some inner peace as well. It's not a religious practice.
But in America Jews who are into Buddhism have defined themselves: and when you define yourself as a Jewish Buddhist, you cause lots of people to start flapping their hands aggressively and splutter words like "assimilation" and "weirdos." Parents and Jewish educators worry that the JUBUs are a cult, like the Moonies, and that their kids will get sucked in. Well, they're not - but they might.
Why Buddhism? Well, partly because for Jews it's less of a betrayal than Catholicism. No, that was glib - sorry. I think it's because Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. It's thus easier for Jews who, for whatever reason, feel aliented from Judaism - but don't want to abandon their identity completely - to reconcile a spiritual practice of meditation with loyalty to their Jewish heritage. There is no idol worship involved, no godhead, no text that outright contradicts Jewish theology.
I say, whatever makes you happy. Mahatma Gandhi said, All religions are true. And the Dalai Lama is reputed to have told one of his advanced students who was of Jewish origin - "Now go back to your own heritage."
And what brought all this on? Well, it was this wedding announcement in Sunday's New York Times.
Pamela Lee Cohen and Milo Oliver Bernstein were married yesterday at the Puck Building in New York. Dr. Bernard Weitzman, a Buddhist minister, officiated.
The bride, 33, is a doctoral candidate in motor learning at Teachers College at Columbia. She graduated from the Juilliard School and received a master's degree in dance from the University of Washington. She is a daughter of Patti and Gibby Cohen of Westport, Conn.
The bridegroom, also 33, is an owner of INA, a group of four consignment stores in New York that specialize in clothing and accessories by contemporary designers. He graduated from the California Institute of the Arts. He is the son of Ina Bernstein of New York and Harvey Bernstein of Bridgehampton, N.Y., and the stepson of Lukie Bernstein.
Well, they look pretty happy in the photo.
