The Jew in the Lotus is a best-selling account of dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama. Poets and teachers Rodger Kamenetz and Norman Fischer will reflect on the essence and continuing impact of The Jew in the Lotus for Jewish and Buddhist communities worldwide over the past three decades.
Rodger Kamenetz is the author of 15 books of poetry and prose. The Jew in the Lotus is his best-selling account of a holy pilgrimage of Jewish teachers to meet with the Dalai Lama and has been in print for thirty years. His other books include The History of Last Night’s Dream which was featured on Oprah Winfrey’s “Soul Series” and most recently, The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022. Professor Emeritus of English and Religious Studies at LSU, and founding director of the Jewish Studies program there, he lives in New Orleans and is founder of Natural Dreamwork, a practice that uses dreams for spiritual growth. http://www.kamenetz.com/
Norman Fischer is a poet and Zen Buddhist priest. His recent poetry titles include Selected Poems 1980-2013, There Was a Clattering as…, Nature, and Men in Suits.. His latest Buddhist titles are The World Could be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path; and When You Greet Me I Bow: notes and reflections from a life in Zen. His translation of the Hebrew psalms, Opening to You, published by Viking Compass in 2002, is widely read in both Jewish and Christian circles. The University of Alabama Press Poetics Series brought out his Experience: Essays on Thinking, Writing, Language, and Religion in 2016. He lives in Muir Beach California with his wife Kathie, who is also a Zen priest. For more information see www.everydayzen.org, and www.normanfischer.org.
