religions

Article
From a Jewish Communist to a Jewish Buddhist:
Allen Ginsberg as a Forerunner of a New
American Jew
Yaakov Ariel
Department of Religious Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 106 Carolina Hall,
UNC Campus, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; yariel@email.unc.edu




Received: 21 December 2018; Accepted: 31 January 2019; Published: 7 February 2019


Abstract: The article examines Allen Ginsberg’s cultural and spiritual journeys, and traces the
poet’s paths as foreshadowing those of many American Jews of the last generation. Ginsberg was a
unique individual, whose choices were very different other men of his era. However, it was larger
developments in American society that allowed him to take steps that were virtually unthinkable
during his parents’ generation and were novel and daring in his time as well. In his childhood and
adolescence, Ginsberg grew up in a Jewish communist home, which combined socialist outlooks with
mild Jewish traditionalism. The poet’s move from communism and his search for spirituality started
already at Columbia University of the 1940s, and continued throughout his life. Identifying with
many of his parents’ values and aspirations, Ginsberg wished to transcend beyond his parents’ Jewish
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 restricted his choices and freedoms to one all-encompassing system of faith
or authority. In Ginsberg’s understanding, Buddhism was a universal, non-theistic religion that
meshed well with an individualist outlook, and offered personal solace and mindfulness. He and
other Jews, who followed his example, have seen no contradiction between practicing Buddhism
and Jewish identity and have not sensed any guilt. Their Buddhism has been Western, American,
and individualistic in its goals, meshing with other interests and affiliations. In that, Ginsberg served
as a model and forerunner to a new kind of Jew, who takes pride in his heritage, but wished to live his
life socially, culturally and spiritually in an open and inclusive environment, exploring and enriching
herself beyond the Jewish fold. It has become an almost routine Jewish choice, reflecting the values,
and aspirations of many in the Jewish community, including those who chose religious venues within
the declared framework of the Jewish community.

Keywords: Allen Ginsberg; America; Judaism; American Judaism; beat generation; communism;
Buddhism; spirituality; spiritual seekers; poetry; Howl; Kaddish

1. Introduction
One of the most memorable figures of the countercultural movement, of the 1960s–1970s, was a
prophet-looking poet with a bird and long hair, singing mantras, reading poetry and calling for
non-violence.1 Many remember Allen Ginsberg’s promotion of peace, freedoms to express and
experiment, and advocacy of new literary, cultural and spiritual venues. Few have thought about him

1 (Gitlin 1987; Schultz 1999).

Religions 2019, 10, 100; doi:10.3390/rel10020100 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions

Religions 2019, 10, 100 2 of 17

as a forerunner of a new kind of Jew. Most of Ginsberg’s cultural, spiritual and political activities
took place outside the Jewish fold and the poet hardly practiced Jewish rites or affiliated with Jewish
groups. Yet, Ginsberg pioneered a new approach on the part of many Jews. While acknowledging
their Jewish identity and heritage, many American Jews have come, in recent decades, to see it as their
right to choose and create their own social, cultural, and spiritual territories, where Judaism is one
element in a larger amalgam.
In the 1940s–1950s, alongside his studies at Columbia University, his growth as a literary figure
of avant-garde poetry, and his public activity for freedom of artistic expressions, Ginsberg begun a
spiritual pilgrimage that has lasted throughout his life.2 Judaism played only a partial role in the
poet’s spiritual quests. His activities and ideas, from the political to the spiritual, reflected an agenda of
inclusivity and multiple experiences. While there were other Jews of his generation who chose similar
spiritual paths, for Jews, and non-Jews too, Ginsberg came to epitomize a new model of individual
in contemporary society. One who builds his or her life in diverse environments, chooses at ease his
or her cultural interests and spiritual pursuits, and creates a freer and more complex identity than
modern society had previously allowed.
In order to explore the spiritual choices and venues of Ginsberg, and examine how they reflect
new worldviews and major social and cultural changes, one must begin by exploring Ginsberg’s
upbringing and the agendas that motivated him along the way.

2. A Jewish Strive for the Universal

Ginsberg’s personality and life choices as well as his intellectual, political, literary and spiritual
pursuits were not typical of persons of his era and background. Most men of his generation turned
up very differently than him, led a life far removed from his, and pursued careers and activities with
little resemblance to his own. Still, the poet’s actions and style had their roots in a particular Jewish
American environment, and upbringing.
Ginsburg’s parents, Naomi and Louis, were not run-of-the-mill Americans of the 1920s–1940s.
Both children of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, they advanced through the public school
system and higher education, moving away from the working class world, in which they grew up, into
an educated, albeit frugal, middle class standard of living, with Louis working as a teacher, and earning
a modest reputation as a poet.3 Looking upon America as potentially a land of promise, Naomi and
Louis considered their country to be in dire need of social reform and greater equality. Naomi was a
card-carrying communist, who took Allen and his brother to events and summer camps organized by
the party. Louis considered himself a socialist and participated in communist activities to accompany
his wife. Naomi also advocated nudism and vegetarianism, both utterly eccentric by the standards of
the time.4
Although theirs was not the usual course for American Jews, the Ginsbergs were not on their own.
Tens of thousands of American Jews joined the Communist Party, during the 1920s–1940s, at least
for a while.5 These included, besides the affiliates of the American Communist Party, thousands of
communists, such as Trotskyites, who opposed the Stalinist line. Other, somewhat less radical socialist
ideologies were also popular among inter-war American Jews. These included socialist and labor
groups, activists of unions, and left-wing Zionists. In fact, within a Jewish population that reached
about five million in the early 1940s, hundreds of thousands favored progressive social-oriented
activism and policies. The 1920s and 1930s were years of strife and upheaval in Europe with the
rise of fascist and Nazi regimes. In America too, those years saw a rise in the activities and rhetoric

2 Ginsberg’s book Howl brought about a ground breaking obscenity trial that became something of an ethos and a symbol.
(Shinder 2006; Ginsberg 2010a).
3 Born in White Russia, Naomi Ginsberg grew up in America.
4 For an exploration of Allen Ginsberg’s family and childhood see (Morgen 2006).
5 On Jewish communists during the era, see (Srebrnik 2010).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 3 of 17

of white supremacist groups and anti-Jewish sentiments, coupled with the painful economic and
emotional effects of the Great Depression and mass unemployment.6 More than in other periods, many
Jews considered communism to present viable alternatives to unjust and abusive political, social and
economic systems. Thousands of young Jewish men, about a decade older than Allen, volunteered to
serve in the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, in 1936–1938.
While advocating a secular modernist worldview and universal values, Jewish communists
organized in their own troops, remaining, in reality, within Jewish social and cultural frameworks.7
Most Jewish communists of the 1920s–1930s socialized with secular, mostly communist or socialist
Jews like themselves, and married within the fold. Jewish communists even labored to preserve Jewish
culture, as they understood it, including Yiddish as the language of the Jewish masses. They published
Yiddish periodicals, and established schools and summer camps that taught Yiddish alongside English.
For Allen, “Yiddish” would come to signify a constricting parochial Jewish environment from which he
would strive to escape. Jewish communists, such as Naomi and Louis Ginsberg, also celebrated Jewish
holidays, providing them with new universal meanings and interpretations. Jewish communists
maintained Jewish rites of passage. This included brit for boys on their eighth day. Allen, like other
Jewish boys born to communist parents was circumcised and received a Jewish name, in his case, Israel.
Jewish communists firmly insisted on Jewish burials, including religious Jewish rites such as tahara,
ritual cleansing of the body, and levaya, Jewish burial services, complete with the reciting of kaddish.
This commemorative prayer would have a special meaning for Ginsberg.
While choosing a political line that American society at large deemed unacceptable, for the
Ginsbergs and other Jews like them, the ultimate goal was integration, as Jews, into the American
mainstream. For many young Jews the Communist Party often served as a stepping-stone along a
road that included higher education and intellectual, artistic or professional pursuits. They wished to
reform America, in order to find their place in that country.
Ginsberg absorbed his parents’ values and visions. “America I used to be a Communist when
I was a kid I am not sorry,” he wrote many years later in “America,” a poem in which he aired his
complains and feelings about his country.8 While moving away from the communist world of his
parents, and rejecting hierarchical and authoritative structures that communism entailed, Ginsberg
soughed other means than those of his parents to make American society and culture more inclusive
and accepting. He advocated, in different times and venues, an open, tolerant society that transcends
tribal and parochial boundaries and offers room to people like himself. Ginsberg would mention
communism in his poetry, or, more often, he would refer to the Soviet bloc, mostly in order to show
the futility of the global struggle between America and its enemies.
As far removed from his background as Ginsberg would journey, he ultimately remained the
child of East European immigrant Jews who were eager to feel completely at home in American society,
and his personal agenda was to transcend his original cultural surroundings, which he considered
limited and unfulfilling. Likewise, he remained the faithful son of the radical and unconventional
Naomi Ginsberg. Following his mother’s footsteps, Ginsberg would demonstrate a large measure
of defiance or disregard for mainstream society’s rules and regulations. As a poet and cultural
spokesperson, Ginsberg gave voice to his heart and mind in a direct, undiluted manner, even when
the content, or style, did not correspond to social conventions.9 Unlike his mother, and against many
odds, he gained much appreciation in the social circles into which he strived for admission.

6 (Dinnerstein 1991).
7 A collection of documents pertaining to Jewish communist troops is currently archived at Cornell University. I am
thankful to Elissa Sampson Boyarin for sharing the information with me. https://get.google.com/albumarchive/
109009527338097520639/album/AF1QipPyH6wm09hGi42uI-ZS7w-jnNDOGNYCyKYemyJi?source=pwa&authKey=
CMPRovWRhtGtiwE.
8 (Ginsberg 1959).
9 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswsg0.
Religions 2019, 10, 100 4 of 17

Remarkably, Ginsberg would come to serve as an icon and leader for a large movement of cultural
change, and new spiritual expressions, while remaining unabashedly the neurotic, non-conformist,
East-Coast intellectual Jew that he was. The fact that Ginsberg became a spokesperson and hero for
people who came from very different backgrounds, some of whom grew up distrusting people such as
he, signified a new chapter in American social, cultural, and religious history. A generation earlier, a
person like Allen Ginsberg would, almost certainly, been shunned, marginalized and censored.

3. Creating Inclusive Environments

During his undergraduate years at Columbia, Ginsberg began venturing beyond the social circle
in which he grew up, mostly attracted to creative, educated ‘on the edge’ characters, regardless of
confessional, racial or ethnic origins. His early life experiences, especially his mother’s mental health
and eccentricities, brought him to look upon unconventional behaviors as acceptable human traits,
and he viewed eccentric, or tormented people as inspiring and righteous.10 One of his most powerful,
as well as acclaimed poems, Howl, relates to, and tells the story of friends and acquaintances who had
demonstrated erratic behavior, on account of traumas and mental suffering, thus normalizing and
legitimizing their personalities, showing and stirring sympathy and compassion for their actions.11
Aiming at the spiritual, Ginsberg added an element of mysticism and holiness to his poetic manifesto,
depicting the tormented figures as martyrs.
Most of Ginsberg’s new friends came from upper-middle class white Protestant backgrounds.
Many possessed physical, athletic, and social gifts, which provided them with, at least potentially,
better standing in society, and more confidence in making social connections than himself.12 Yet,
Ginsberg would soon become the leading figure of a new circle of unconventional artists and writers.13
This position was not self-understood. As a rule, Jewish students in the 1940s befriended other Jews,
and for many of his new acquaintances Ginsberg was the first Jew with whom they became close.
This is remarkable when one considers the fact that Ginsberg was not trying to ‘pass’, by adopting
ways and mannerism that were not his own, or fabricating a false background or lineage and
changing his name. Such occurrences were abundant among Jews of his generation.14 His own
brother, Eugene, five years his senior and a lawyer, abandoned the name Ginsberg in favor of an
all-American name, Eugene Brooks. Eugene married what at that time most people considered to
be an all-American woman—blonde and Christian—and raised his family divorced from cultural or
ethnic Jewish attributes. Allen chose a different path. While he was at this time uncomfortable with
some aspects of his being, such as his sexuality, the young poet did not pretend to be someone he
was not, and his openness about himself was striking.15 Likewise, while he strived to venture out of
parochial constraints and obtain recognition as an American poet and not merely a Jewish one, he did
not present himself to be someone he was not. His goal was to create what the historian Jacob Katz
called a neutral society, in which Jews like himself could work and study as well as love and live with
non-Jews as a matter of course.16 In trying to achieve that goal, his personal life and career proved to
be something of a breakthrough.
Ginsberg’s leadership position within the Beat group that would attract national, as well as
international, attention would become more evident in the 1950s and reached its full bloom in the
1960s, with Ginsberg laboring actively towards the creation of the movement’s aura.17 His tolerance
of his friends’ weaknesses proved to be a great asset, placing him in a central position within the

10 Morgen (2006), I Celebrate Myself, p. 13.

11 On the poem and its legacy, see (Schumacher 1992, p. 207; Warner 2005).
12 Taylor, “The Poem and I are Fifty,” in Warner (2005), p. 21.
13 I Celebrate Myself, numerous pages.
14 Tobias Wolff’s father was one of many such Jews who ‘crossed’ at that time. See (Wolff 1994).
15 See, for example, Ginsberg’s letter to Wilhelm Reich of 11 March 1947, in (Ginsberg 2008, pp. 16–17).
16 Cf. (Katz 1985, p. 195).
17 (Watson 1995).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 5 of 17

emerging group of Beat writers and artists. To begin with, he was the one person on friendly terms
with everybody else in his circle of un-Orthodox avant-garde writers, artists, and musicians, serving
as a connecting link. At times, he offered refuge in his home, or financial support, to needy friends
and colleagues. Ginsberg often recruited fellow writers and artists to appear in different events,
including poetry readings, concerts, summer schools at the Buddhist Naropa University, which he
helped establish, and series of lectures at Brooklyn College, where he became an instructor.
Ginsberg tirelessly advocated the publication of Jack Kerouac’s most known novel On the
Road.18 Kerouac, however, did not always reciprocate the love his Jewish friend bestowed on him.
The relationship between the two points to a sore element in the otherwise seemingly outstanding
acceptance of Ginsberg in many cultural circles in America. Friendly in the early years of their
acquaintance, Kerouac, whose book, On the Road, came to represent the open and liberated values
of the Beat Generation, retreated from the avant-garde style and values of his early life, and made
hostile remarks relating to Ginsberg’s ethnic origin. Such incidents were reminders of the novelty of
the spaces Ginsberg was trying to curve, often successfully, for himself and others in America that
only started lifting its social and professional restrictions on Jews and other minorities. In spite of
Kerouac’s bigotry, Ginsberg named, in 1974, the Naropa School of Disembodied Poetics in memory of
his friend.19
In the late 1960s, Ginsberg assumed a more influential cultural and political role, coming to
play a father figure for the large countercultural audiences that came about during that time and
adopted many of the Beat generation’s values and styles. These ranged from more daring expressions
in literature to explorations of new spiritual venues. Ginsburg’s choices became more publically
significant, with many paying attention to his messages and moves.20
One of Ginsberg’s ventures, which he helped finance was the Committee on Poetry, which he
founded in 1966. It offered material and legal support to fellow poets and colleagues, as well as
cultural rebels such as Timothy Leary, the advocate of LSD, who needed money for his legal battles.21
He pronounced Leary “a hero of American consciousness,” and “Democratic Boddhistava teacher of
the uses of LSD in America.”22
Like his friend, the Neo-Hasidic rabbi, and founder of Jewish Renewal, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,
Ginsberg experimented with Psychedelic drugs. Both Schachter and he advocated the usage of LSD
as a means for spiritual and intellectual growth.23 Schachter and Ginsberg, both spiritual seekers,
ready to experiment and eager to expand, also took interest in Asian religions. They chose, however,
different paths in their relation to Judaism and Asian religions. Shachter wished to acquire and
incorporate Asian spiritual systems into contemporary Judaism in order to invigorate and rejuvenate
Judaism. He believed that Jews could learn from Asian devotees how to love God without letting long
held bitterness or pain from their history of persecution diminish the enchantment. Ginsberg on the
other hand practiced very few Jewish rites and did not wish to combine Judaism with Hinduism or
Buddhism. He was an American and a Jew interested in Asian teachings, but not in the reform of
Judaism. Still, the paths of these two spiritual seekers would cross a number of times, allowing writers
such as Roger Kamenetz to view their choices and opinions through comparative lenses.24

18 The index in Morgen’s biography of Ginsberg, I Celebrate Myself, includes a special entry “Ginsberg’s promotion of”
[Kerouac’s writings], referencing to 20 different pages in the biography. Kerouac’s biographer, Tom Clark, plays down
Ginsberg’s contribution, see (Clark 1984).
19 https://www.naropa.edu/academics/jks/.
20 See the transcript of “The Houseboat Summit,” February 1967, reprinted in Conners, see (Ginsberg 2010b).
21 (Stevens 1987).
22 (Greenfield 2006).
23 On Ginsberg’s thought in this realm, see also (Ginsberg 1968, 2001).
24 (Kamenetz 1994).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 6 of 17

4. Kaddish, Jewishness and Interaction with the Jewish Community

Ginsberg grew up in a secular communist Jewish home of the 1920s–1930s. Even this seemingly
non-religious space left a deep Jewish mark on him. The Beat poet was absent when his mother, Naomi,
died and he could not attend her funeral. The few mourners who did participate refrained from reciting
the Kaddish, and pained Ginsberg wrote an epic poem, Kaddish, in lieu of the Kaddish not recited for
his mother. When writing Kaddish in 1960, Ginsberg was far from leading a traditional Jewish life and
had no affiliation with Jewish religious congregations, or even secular groups. Still, it was important
for him to commemorate his mother by reciting, in a literary form, an individualized version of the
Jewish traditional prayer recited in honor of family members who died. Ginsberg’s Kaddish follows the
rhythm, but does not repeat the words of the traditional prayer. The mostly Aramaic prayer exalts
and affirms the majesty of God in the face of loss and grief, without actually relating to the deceased
individual and the specifics of her life. Ginsberg personalized the prayer, tailoring its content to his
mother’s life experiences, and his impressions of her, while maintaining its powerful effect and its
connection to forces beyond the deceased’s life.
The poem appealed to many Jews of Ginsberg’s generation, who appreciated, in addition to its
poetic strength, its personalized commemorative value. Perhaps unwittingly, Ginsberg gave voice to
many Jews who considered the traditional Jewish prayer to be too remote and abstract. Kaddish was a
hit among educated liberal Jews everywhere and could be found, during the 1960s–1980s, on almost
every bookshelf of Jews who read American poetry. Without realizing it, Ginsberg opened the way for
a number of Jewish writers to place new spiritual meanings on the traditionally recited Kaddish.25
Ginsberg did not act on behalf of the Jewish community, or groups or sections within it. Jews
associated with Jewish establishments failed to recognize him as an explorer of new Jewish venues
and identities. This included the poet’s enemy Norman Podhoretz, who by the 1960s, looked upon
Ginsberg as a traitor to the Jewish cause.26 Podhoretz also studied literature at Columbia University,
but unlike Ginsberg choose a more mainstream ‘respectable’ social and cultural line. He did not
appreciate the Beat group and his opinion on Ginsberg’s friends, who became iconic figures, and the
Beat literary achievements, was less than laudatory.27
Amazingly, it was Jack Kerouac, who did not care very much for Jewishness, who recognized his
friend’s pioneering role in molding a new kind of Jew. Ginsberg’s social circle was one of the first of its
kind to open up to Jews and look upon them as colleagues, friends and lovers, with little or no stigma
attached. Insightfully, Kerouac recognized this avant-garde reality, identifying in Ginsberg’s stand
within the larger cultural scene a sign of a new phase in the position of Jews within American society,
as well as in what it means to be Jewish. He lamented, in Christian terms, the Jewish community’s lack
of recognition of Ginsberg’s role.28 “It’s most important for you to realize that . . . the Jews are bound
to neglect their own best Ginsberg Jesus, the prophet is without honor . . . ”29
Somewhat surprisingly, a number of Israeli literary figures embraced Kaddish, and Ginsberg’s
work in general. A highly ideological society in the early 1960s, the literary circles endorsed, for the
most part, mainstream Zionist outlooks, and most of the cultural elite would have rejected Ginsberg’s
understanding of the desired place of Jews in society. However, the anti-establishment bohemian left
embraced the Beat poet’s style and messages wholeheartedly. Dan Omer, a cultural rebel, came up, in
1967, with a compilation of Beat poetry in Hebrew, Nahama: Shira Beatnikit Americayit (Howl: American
Beatnik Poetry).30 The book was a hit with late 1960s youth in Israel, some of whom came to admire and

25 For example, (Wieseltier 1998), which explores the history and meaning of the ancient prayer, coupled with the author’s
experiences during his year of mourning his father; See also (McLoughlin 2006).
26 (Podhoretz 1997, 1999).
27 (Podhoretz 1958).
28 (Kerouac and Ginsberg 1955).
29 Ibid, p. 288.
30 (Omer 1967).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 7 of 17

amulet some features of the American counterculture, both in style and in coming to demand greater
freedoms of expression. Perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, HaBimah, Israel’s national theater, staged a
production of a play version of Kaddish, with Lea Koenig, one of Israel’s noted actors, playing Naomi
Ginsberg, and running naked on the stage.31 Yotam Reuveni, a journalist and an author, reminisced
decades later that in the 1960s Ginsberg served as a source of inspiration for him when he published
his daring novel, In Praise of Day Dreaming, an unprecedented depiction of homosexual life in Israel.32
Nathan Zach, an avant-garde poet, a cultural enfant terrible and an icon of a new anti-mainstream
individuality in Israel, translated Ginsberg’s poetry into Hebrew, acquainting Israeli audiences with
the American poet.33 He and Ginsberg became close friends. In sum, the left-wing anti-establishment
segment of Israeli culture embraced the Beat writer as a means of giving voice to their own yearning
for a more open, free and inclusive society.
While searching, and practicing outside the fold, Ginsberg took interest in Jewish mysticism
and thought, and related strongly to Jewish history and symbols. When outside of the United States,
Ginsberg made efforts to visit sites with Jewish historical meaning.34 He also visited synagogues and
participated in Shabbat prayers, for example during his visit to Budapest.35 When meeting the poet and
Fascist collaborator Ezra Pound, the Beat poet acted as if he represented the Jewish people, listening to
and accepting Pound’s apology for his antisemitism before and during World War II.36 He participated
in Jewish intellectual debates, such as the argument between Hannah Arendt and Norman Podhoretz
in the wake of the Eichmann Trial and Arendt’s book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, standing unequivocally
on Arendt’s side.37 For him, Arendt was an open-minded intellectual who adhered to universal values
and not to Jewish parochial sensitivities. Consequently, the relationship between him and Norman
Podhoretz deteriorated even further. Podhoretz’ aim became more and more defending Jewish causes
as he understood them, including, and perhaps especially, the safety of the state of Israel. Ginsberg
promoted political justice and freedom of expression with no particular preference for the Jewish state,
and did not care much for those whom he believed wished to silence or correct Arendt on account of
Jewish tribal agendas.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ginsberg’s attitude towards Israel was different of that of most American
Jews of his generation, and was closer to that of his Left-Wing Israeli admirers. He was no Zionist,
but rather an advocate of integration of all individuals into a tolerant pluralistic society. In Israel, he
saw a reflection of a Jewish parochial milieu, which he had long left behind. His reply, to Gershom
Scholem, the leading scholar of Jewish mysticism, and his wife Fania, who asked him, in 1961, about
the prospect of building his home in Israel tells it all. “Your great idea is to build a new Bronx here.
All my life I’ve been running away from the Bronx, and here I come to the Jewish state and I find
that big idea of the Zionists is to build a giant Bronx here. If I have to go back to the Bronx, I may
as well stay in the original one,” the poet asserted.38 The Bronx at the time of Ginsberg’s meeting
with Scholem claimed a Jewish population of about 500,000, and symbolized, for Ginsberg and others,
a heavily Jewish ethnic concentration that lacked sophistication and integration, the opposite of the
open multi-cultural environment to which the poet aspired.39

31 On the staging of Kaddish in HaBimah, see (Raz 1972).

32 https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/prose/.premium-1.6544609.
33 Am Oved published Natan Zach’s translation of Kaddish and Other Poems (1958–1984) in Hebrew in 1988.
34 For example, Allen Ginsberg’s letter to Nicanor Parra, of 20 August 1965, see (Ginsberg 2008, p. 303).
35 I owe thanks to Prof. Michael Silver of the Hebrew University for sharing the information about Ginsberg’s visit to the
Budapest synagogue with him.
36 (Peck 2017).
37 (Arendt 1963). On the controversy, see https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/books/review/fifty-years-later-why-does-
eichmann-in-jerusalem-remain-contentious.html.
38 On the exchange between Ginsberg and Scholem, see (Scholem 2017; BBC 1994; Shapiro 2005).
39 On New York Jewry at that era, see (Gurock 2012).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 8 of 17

5. Ginsberg in Israel
Ginsberg was interested in Israel, its people, thinkers and issues, traveling to that country,
and spending two months there in 1961 and then again in 1987–1988. In his first visit, he intended
to meet scholars, writers and artists, as well as visit relatives and historical and religious sites.
Setting out systematically to prepare his travel, he wrote down his plans meticulously.40 He received
recommendations, names, and addresses, from friends who had been to Israel and prepared a list of
places to visit, including restaurants and bars worth frequenting, as well as thinkers and artists he was
curious to meet. The list reads like a Who’s Who of Israeli artistic, bohemian and intellectual circles
of the early 1960s. This included Dan Ben-Amotz, a popular Israeli lowbrow writer and bohemian
figure, and Yigal Tumarkin, a rebellious modernist sculptor. Both artists were enfant terrible who lived
in the secular, pluralistic and permissive side of Israeli society, protesting against Orthodox Jewish
legislation, government encroachment on free speech or human rights, and discrimination against
Arab minorities.
The Beat poet and his partner, Peter Orlovsky, settled in the home of a friend, Ethel Broido,
in Tel-Aviv.41 Ethel Immigrated from the United States to Palestine, and by 1961 was a veteran
American-Israeli, familiar with both cultures. The demography of American immigrants in Israel in
the 1940s–1960s had been very different of what it would become in the 1970s–1980s, following the
1967 War and the Messianic resurgence to which it gave rise. Few American Jews immigrated to Israel,
the standard of life and the opportunities America offered at the time being so much superior to those
of British Palestine or Israel in its first years.42 Those who settled in the country were overwhelmingly
secular and socialist, favoring the more communal values of the nascent Jewish society. Many of them
found their place in the intellectual, professional, or artistic circles of Israel of the time.
Ethel was a translator and editor, which public agencies, such as the World Zionist Organization or
Tel-Aviv University, commissioned her work. She was familiar with the Israeli literary establishment,
but the Beat Poet was not motivated to meet editors, publishers, or writers associated with the
establishment. Ginsberg also met his cousin Irene in Tel-Aviv. Immigrating a number of years earlier,
his uncle Abe’s daughter taught children with special needs. Meeting family members was important
to Ginsberg who sought such blood relations wherever he went.
Using his friend’s home as a base, Ginsberg set almost immediately on his intellectual excursions,
even before meeting fellow artists. His first encounter was with the theologian and writer Martin
Buber in Jerusalem. Ginsberg read Buber’s work long before arriving in Israel, and brought books by
Buber and Scholem with him, alongside tomes on Indian spirituality. This choice was not accidental.
Aspects of Judaism in which Ginsberg took interest were the mystical, Kabbalistic, Hasidic and ethical.
His interest in Christianity was very similar, as he admired the medieval mystic St. Francis of Assisi,
and William Blake, a nineteenth-century, religiously un-affiliated, English mystical poet and painter.
Mysticism was a niche of Judaism, which the ecumenical and integrationist Ginsberg could relate to
without a sense of conceding to an ethnic parochial community. Kabbalah fascinated western thinkers
since renaissance times and a number of American religious seekers and intellectuals took interest
and incorporated Kabbalah into their teachings. This included theosophical leaders such as Henry
Steel Alcott and the ‘Missouri Platonist’ Thomas Moore Johnson. In a 1984 interview with Michael
Horovitz for the Jewish Chronicle, Ginsberg spoke about his preference in Judaism for a “the bohemian
mysticism of Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, or Isaac Bashevis Singer.”43 Perhaps not surprisingly,

40 See Ginsberg’s notebook and diary in which he spells out his plans, and gathers information he had received from friends.
Ginsberg’s Personal Papers, Stanford University, Coll M 733, Notebooks and Journals, Box 13, Fol. 13 (61-05).
41 I am indebted to Miki Gurion for sharing information, personal memoires and a photograph from Ginsberg’s stay at her
mother’s home. Likewise, I would like to thank Liora Herzig, an associate of Ephraim and Gentila Broido on sharing her
knowledge and reminiscence.
42 On the sociology of American Jews in Israel, see (Antonovsky 1985).
43 (Horowitz 1984). See also, https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-jewish-chronicle/20090807/282840777059127.
Religions 2019, 10, 100 9 of 17

Buber and Scholem’s works would become popular among Jewish members of the counterculture,
many of whom would take interest in the mystical, supernatural, and Hasidic elements of Judaism
and connect them with the values and agendas of the counterculture.44
Ginsberg related to Kabbalah in his poetry a number of times already before his visit to Israel. In
his epic, groundbreaking poem, Howl, which Ginsberg completed in 1955, he speaks about “the best
minds of my generation . . . Who studies Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross and bop Kabbalah because
the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas.”45 Kabbalah appears here as “bop Kabbalah”
as a ‘cool’ contemporary American term or system alongside a Greek philosopher, an American
Mystical poet, and an early modern Spanish Christian mystic. The mystical ecumenical message is
clear enough.
In “Journal Night Thoughts,” a poem Ginsberg wrote a short while before traveling to Israel,
and which, like most of Ginsberg’s poetry carried strong religious and spiritual imagery, his one Jewish
exclamation is:

“Come true again—the Kabbalah sign

in the vomit of the floor” 46

With Buber, Ginsberg discussed the possibilities embodied in what Ginsberg and a number of his
friends considered mind-expanding and spiritual enabling psychedelic drugs. Coming from a different
age and place, the philosopher rejected the notion. Writing a short while after his conversation with
Ginsberg, Buber expressed his opinion that LSD experiences were “Holidays not only from the petty I,
enmeshed in the machinery of its aims, but also from the person participating in the community of
logos and cosmos.”47
The meeting with Scholem created a more lasting relationship, leaving a mark on both the poet
and the scholar. Scholem wrote, “The poet Allen Ginsberg once visited me. A likeable fellow. Genuine.
Strange, mad, but genuine. I took a strong liking to him. My wife and I had a very interesting
conversation with him.” After hearing Ginsberg’s comments about the Bronx and Israel, Scholem
asked him, “What if you’re mistaken?” but then he went on to admit that there was truth in what
Ginsberg had asserted.
Scholem, like Buber, held to humanistic universal values, attempting to influence Jewish Israeli
culture along those lines.48 Both thinkers were members of Brit-Shalom, a pre-1948 group in British
Palestine, which promoted the ideal of Arab-Jewish peaceful co-existence in a mutual commonwealth.
Ginsberg shared many values with the two thinkers, but held a different understanding of the place
of Jews in modern society. His experiences came about in a different cultural, geographic, political
and ethnic environment than that of Scholem. The latter had despaired of the integration of Jews into
German society49 On that basis, Steven Aschheim discovered, Scholem evaded the draft in World
War I. Ginsberg represented an outlook on the relationship between individuals and society that was
avant-garde even in America, and almost non-existent in Europe and the Middle East.
Ginsberg stayed in touch with Scholem, met him again in Europe, and sought his advice when he
wrote one of his epic poems Plutonian Ode in 1978.50 In writing the poem, Ginsberg utilized gnostic
and kabbalist symbols and ideas, in order to protest what he considered the destructiveness of the
contemporary scientific military political order.

44 (Ariel 2003; Magid 2015). https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/between-paradigm-shift-judaism-and-neo-hasidism-the-new-

metaphysics-of-jewish-renewal.
45 (Ginsberg 1956).
46 (Ginsberg 1984a).
47 (Buber 1965).
48 (Scholem 1983).
49 (Aschheim 2007).
50 (Ginsberg 1978).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 10 of 17

While Ginsberg appreciated his meetings with thinkers, writers and artists, as well as the sites
he visited, his impression of the country as a whole was not enthusiastic. In letters to his father and
brother, Ginsberg expressed mixed sentiments. He mentioned that he wept when the boat pulled into
Haifa, feeling “old holy land blues.” Spending time in Israel was “like being at vast anarching (sic!)
family circle meeting, everybody hospitable.” Some of what he saw reminded him of his childhood
“the great thing is that all the old world socialists have made their utopia here—the kibbutz atmosphere
is like Camp Nichtgedeiget, [the communist camp in upstate New York, where the Ginsbergs camped
when Allen was young].” Yet he lamented, “Arabs here are not treated very well at all, basically
an insolvable problem until people forget their differences and identities—which neither Jews nor
Arabs are capable of doing.”51 Ginsberg was thus offering his inclusive vision of society, which was
outstanding in the era of the Cold War, when all sides considered nation states the norm. Ginsberg
might have also been influenced by the poet and ideologue Yonatan Ratosh, who met and shared with
Ginsberg the Cannanite ideal of turning both Arabs and Jews into ‘Hebrews’. A small group of secular
artists and writers, the Cannanites advocated the creation of a pluralistic Hebrew nation that would
bring together Arabs and Jews, eliminating the differences between them.52
In another letter to his father, he pronounced a harsh opinion on the parochial ethnic atmosphere
of the country:

This place is just another small country . . . unless you have a pronounced tendency to be
Yiddish, which I don’t—as a matter of fact, I feel a more pronounced tendency to feel at home
around Indians and Arabs in Mexico or Tangier, and that oriental atmosphere is disappearing
here, to the dismay of many Sabras—and is appearing to be replaced by a polyglot, modern,
second rate industrial country.

The choice of “unless you have a pronounced tendency to be Yiddish” is not accidental. Ginsberg
considered himself Jewish, but rejected Jewish parochial or tribal culture, especially attributes that
stood between Jews and the larger society. “Yiddish,” was for him, a sign, an attribute, of the parochial
atmosphere against which he militated. Not sensing any contradiction to his aversion to “Yiddish,”
Ginsberg loved Jewish New York food, and, until doctors ordered him to stop, consumed such
delicacies as matzo ball, borscht and challah on a daily basis.53
Ginsberg wrote one poem during his stay in Israel in 1961, “Galilee Shore.” Like almost all his
poetry, it carried some Jewish imagery and even more extensively, Christian symbols. He dwelled on
the Christian sites of the Galilee, but not on Jewish sites. However, he mentions the “beard of Martin
Buber”, and the “skull faced Gershom Scholem,” following common perceptions of Jewish appearance.
Perhaps not accidentally, he doubts the existence of the biblical Solomon, who presumably reigned
over a united kingdom of Israel, and built the first Temple in Jerusalem. He invokes, approvingly,
Peter and Christ in Cana, welcoming ‘the peacemaker,’ and ending the poem with the New Testament
sight of walking on the water. In the poem, Ginsberg also spoke about the “silence between Hebrew
and Arabic”, and celebrates the thrill of “the first hashish in the holy land,” cutting a balance between
favorable experiences and pessimistic reflections on the future of the country.
Ginsberg noticed the Israeli realities with penetrating eyes. He paid attention to day-to-day life in
the country, including the stiff prices of goods and the beginning of a move from a pioneering ethos to
consumer society. He resented the concrete grey Soviet architecture that Israeli construction companies
and government agencies utilized, rather insensitively, all around the country, including in stone-built
Jerusalem. He noticed the small-town Eastern European manners and culture. Astutely, he realized
that Israel did not really solve the dilemma of what it meant to be Jewish. Still, he mostly tolerated the

51 (Ginsberg and Ginsberg 2001).

52 On the Cannanites, their ideology and influence, see (Shavit 1987).
53 (Silberman 2017).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 11 of 17

new society, demonstrating little enchantment and expressing mild criticism. It was perhaps a fine
place for others, but not for him.
From Israel, Ginsberg and Orlovsky sailed, via Djibouti, to India. Ginsberg planned his itinerary
in America, adjusting it when buying bargain boat tickets in Israel. Working for ZIM, an Israeli
state-sponsored company, his host, Ethel Broido, helped him obtain the tickets. The powerful
cultural and spiritual encounters in the Indian sub-continent would soon overshadow the Israeli
experience. Ginsberg would come back from India a “Hindu,” as he understood and constructed the
term, while Israel, at least to all appearances, would remain just a memory in the back of his mind.
Ginsberg’s evaluation of Israel turned more negative following his visit to the country in 1987–1988.
Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem between 1965 and 1993 and an advocate of united Jerusalem, invited
the poet to Mishkenot Shaananim, a center for writers who come for short periods of residence Kollek
had established in an historical site facing the city wall. An advocate of art and culture, Kollek also
wished to turn his guests into supporters of Israel. However, this time he was not very successful.
Arriving during the First Intifada, twenty years after the 1967 War, Ginsberg paid close attention
to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, studying the political views of different segments of
the population. By 1987, Ginsberg was a very famous poet and cultural icon and his reception in the
country was much more public. Political groups, journalists and writers sought him out, and doors
opened readily for him to meet and inquire.54
Ginsberg related emotionally to the historical sites in East Jerusalem. As in 1961, there was a
duality in his sentiments. He visited the Wailing Wall, and kissed the stones. However, this time his
interests and concerns were more political than intellectual. He was not seeking Buber or Scholem,
who by that time were deceased, but rather investigated the political realities. He made efforts to meet
with Palestinian writers and editors of newspapers, hearing their complaints, and identifying with
their plight.55 He also met with Israeli journalists, such as Uri Avneri, and politicians, including those
from the Israeli right, such as Ehud Olmert.
Shalom Achshav, an Israeli political group that has advocated for greater political sacrifices for
the sake of peace treaties, invited him to speak at their rally in Tel Aviv. Ginsberg read a poem he
wrote in 1974, just in the wake of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, “Jaweh and Allah Battle.” In the
poem, he placed the Jews and Arabs in the same boat, both destructive in their religious, tribal battles.
His opinion, since his visit in 1961 has not changed: to reconcile and make peace, Jews and Arabs need
to give up on religious and ethnic triumphalism. No group, its gods, or visions, receives priority.
Both Gods Terrible! Awful Jaweh Allah!
Both hook-nosed-gods, circumcised.
Jaweh Allah which unreal?
Which stronger Illusion?
Which stronger Army?
Which gives most frightening command?
What God maintains egohood in Eden? Which be nameless?
Which enter Abyss of Light?
Worlds of Gods, jealous Warriors, Humans, Animals & Flowers,
Hungry Ghosts, even Hell Beings all die,
Snack cock and pig eat each other’s tails and perish
All Jews All Moslems’ll die All Israelies All Arabs 5656(Ginsberg 1988).
Following his visit, Ginsberg gave voice to his anger at what he considered Israeli aggression
against Palestinians. Upon returning to America, the poet tried to muster PEN, the association of poets,

54 Ginsberg’s journal, Coll. M 733, Notebooks and Journals, Box 13, Fol. 13, Green Library, Stanford University.
55 On the schedule of Ginsberg’s visit, the people he met, and his impressions, see his journal, Green Library,
Stanford University.
Religions 2019, 10, 100 12 of 17

to a campaign in favor of the Palestinian cause. In one conversation with Jewish spiritual leaders,
including Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Roger Kamenetz, he projected his alienation from what
he saw as tribal skirmishes of the Middle East, and what he considered less-than-generous Israeli
treatment of the Palestinians. At that time, Ginsberg went as far as to declare himself non-Jewish
if being an American Jew meant support for Israeli policies.57 In distancing himself from Israel
and those who supported it, Ginsberg was a forerunner among the American Jewish intelligentsia,
who became disappointed with Israel at the turn of the twenty-first century, at the same time that they
have continued to take interest in the country and its issues. His, and others, universal values trumped
parochial concerns.
Ginsburg refused to limit himself to Jewish cultural, social or religious venues. Instead, he wove
his Jewish identity into a broader, ever-growing, quilt, consisting of numerous cultural, religious,
and aesthetic influences, and situated in a pluralistic and inclusive social milieu. In all of these aspects,
Ginsberg served as an avant-garde example to a new kind of Jew, who explores and chooses new
spiritual homes, or amalgamations of different layers of experience and culture. Famously, he served
as a catalyst and symbol for a relatively large number of Jews who have become practitioners of
Americanized Asian spiritual groups, or other New Religious Movements, while often maintaining
their Jewish identity.

6. Buddhism at the Center of the Quilt

Until 1962, Ginsberg’s spiritual interests remained mainly in the Jewish-Christian path. His poetry
invokes the Jewish-Christian God time, and time again, albeit transforming and revolutionizing the
meaning of righteousness and holiness. “Holy Holy Holy,” which accompanies Howl, is a good
illustration of such deeply religious poetry, which is at the same time defiant, calling for a new
understanding of humans, their emotional needs, and their personal rights. Starting during his
studies at Columbia University, Ginsberg took interest in Christian spirituality, showing attraction
to the mysticism of Francis of Assisi and William Blake. Blake, in particular, influenced Ginsberg
and affected his poetry. Writing in a very different time, place, and cultural environment, Blake
offered an example of mystical religious poetry and apocalyptic imagery that were, at least in
theory, non-theistic. This infatuation did not bring about a change of loyalties or adoption of new
communal affiliations. Ginsberg rather added elements of Christian spiritualty, English Protestant
and Medieval Catholic mysticism, into what would become a growing amalgam of spiritual pursuits.
In this regard, Ginsberg was a forerunner of a postmodern religious era, in which individuals pick,
choose, and combine their spiritual, cultural, esthetic, and communal interests. A constant pilgrim,
Ginsberg, and many who followed in his footsteps, have come to search and select paths, religious
affiliations and cultural networks, shifting and re-arranging them along the way, or amalgamating
different traditions, practices and identities to suit their spiritual, emotional, and communal needs.
Remarkably and tellingly, the religious images and themes in Ginsberg’s poetry remained Western,
American, Jewish, and Christian, even as he adopted Hindu or Buddhist practices. Deborah Baker
suggested that Ginsberg’s visit to India was a spiritually transforming journey in his life.58 He and
his companion, Peter Orlovsky, followed the poet Gary Snyder, and his wife Joanne in visiting India,
in 1962, and staying for a few months. In a manner that would become a pattern, Ginsberg did not
become a devotee of a particular Hindu deity, or follower of gurus. In fact, he hardly sought Swamis
or Holy Men, and, although his experience had a strong spiritual component, his visits to temples
were more tours than pilgrimages.59

57 (Kamenetz 1994, pp. 235–41).

58 (Baker 2008). See also, Ginsberg’s poetry and letters of the period. (Ginsberg 1984b, pp. 290–322; Ginsberg 2008, pp. 256–87).
These include poems and letters from Japan, which was also an important station along the way.
59 On visits to temples, see (Ginsberg 1996).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 13 of 17

Following his visit to India, Ginsberg advocated Hindu practices, as he understood them. These
consisted mostly of non-violence, or pacifism, a teaching or standing that helped build his aura as
a prophet for the Vietnam Era generation, as well as the chanting of mantras. Ginsberg was not
alone. Impressed by Mohandas Gandhi’s presentation of Hinduism as a non-violent tradition, many
Westerners in the 1930s–1970s had come to look at the Hindu tradition through Gandhi’s lenses.
However, merely a few years later, Ginsberg shifted his major spiritual attention to Buddhism. He did
not undergo a conversion experience, did not follow any orthodoxy and did not tie himself for a
lifetime to one Buddhist school or interpretation. His was a ‘tailor it for your needs’ Buddhism,
alternating between teachers and schools, and choosing elements of the systems that suited him
best. Ginsberg however was more systematic about Buddhist practices and affiliations than Hindu
ones. He consulted with teachers and carried exercises almost daily. Still, his Buddhist practices
notwithstanding, Ginsberg remained intellectually and spiritually independent. He maintained Hindu
practices, related to Jewish ethnic and religious symbols, and his poetry continued to reflect Jewish
and Christian imagery.60 Moreover, while mostly following one school of Buddhism, he also found
merit and consulted with masters of other branches of the tradition.
In the early 1970s, Ginsberg became a follower of Chögyam Trungpa (1939–1987), a Tibetan
Buddhist meditation master, who studied in England, and moved to the United States in 1970.
The charismatic Buddhist leader related to Ginsberg with particular respect as a dear supporter
and friend, and although the Beat poet became a devotee, he remained emotionally and spiritually
independent of his master.61 The choice of Trungpa as a spiritual instructor and friend suited Ginsberg,
who benefited from the peace and serenity the Buddhist exercises offered, but did not wish to follow
a spiritual master on other aspects of his life. Trungpa did not interfere with Ginsberg’s choices.
For example, he did not wish to curtail Ginsberg’s sexual life, or other personal or cultural choices
Ginsberg made. Ginsberg’s sexuality meshed well with his choice of Buddhism. Many of the leaders
of Asian-American New Religious Movements condemned gay and bi-sexual behavior, but Buddhist
masters often condoned it.62 This placed a number of Buddhist groups on the progressive side of the
American religious spectrum, and allowed spiritual seekers, such as Ginsberg, to feel welcomed in
such groups, to be themselves openly, and be reassured that their spiritual pursuits went hand in hand
with universal values, and their social, political and cultural views. So while Buddhism turned into a
central part of Ginsberg’s spiritual quilt, it did not overshadow other components of his extensive and
varied activities, social engagements, cultural interests and intellectual and spiritual pursuits.
While maintaining his independence, Ginsberg became devoted to Buddhist causes as he saw
them. In this respect too, Trungpa was a suitable master for Ginsberg to follow. He was intellectually
inclined, and his home and shrine in Boulder, Colorado, became a meeting place for many intellectual
members of the counter-culture, who for the most part favored an atmosphere in which they were not
asked to give up individual choices or scholarly pursuits. Trungpa was the founder of both Shambala
and Naropa Univeristy, intellectual and spiritual enterprises to which Ginsberg could relate. Wishing
to support his teacher, and Naropa, the university Trungpa founded in 1974, Ginsberg utilized his
position within a large circle of avant-garde American writers and established the Jack Kerouac’s
School for Disembodied Poetics. He recruited and brought over a number of distinguished poets to
teach in the program, and raised funds for its finances.63 Amazingly, such instructors, including known
poets, were not paid. The school merely provided dormitory space. It took Ginsburg’s extensive
network of friendships and gifts of persuasion to bring this gallery of accomplished poets to Naropa.

60 The multi-faiths effects on the thoughts and practices of Ginsberg came up amazingly in the Chicago Seven Trial (11–12
December 1969), where he was a witness for the defense. Note his answers about his faith practices, (Ginsberg and Carter 2001).
61 This is depicted in an exchange between Ginsberg and Trungpa, recorded in the documentary (Trungpa 2012).
62 On Asian New Religious Movements and sexuality, see (Lewis and Bogdan 2014).
63 On Ginsberg as a leader in Naropa, see (Kashner 2004).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 14 of 17

No less important was the aura Ginsberg offered the larger Buddhist-American movement, associating
it with the counterculture and with the growing emphasis on individuality and self-fulfillment.
Ginsberg amalgamated his Buddhist practices with the movement of return to nature and the
building of agricultural communes.64 In this, relatively short lived, experiment, Ginsberg was the
initiator, fundraiser (mostly his own income) and community leader. Gordon Ball tells the saga of
East Hill Farm, in upstate New York, as a story of both triumph and failure.65 Ginsberg wished to
create a Buddhist spiritual retreat, among other aims as means of rehabilitation for friends, among
them his partner Peter Orlovsky, who were struggling with drugs and addictions. There were other
resourceful personalities involved, but the commune was dependent on Allen’s leadership and finances
for survival, and he was the one capable of navigating between the different characters, offering a
sense of unity and purpose. Ginsberg was, however, a very busy poet, performer, lecturer, crusader for
free speech, and impresario, as well as an anti-war activist and founder of a center at Naropa, to name
only some of his central activities. The East Hill Farm commune was Ginsberg’s creation and it died
when it became evident that he did not have the time and resources to continue leading and sustaining
the place.66

7. Conclusions
Ginsberg was a forerunner and set an example for a new era in both Jewish, and non-Jewish,
American culture and religion. Although he did not create a new group, or turned himself into
a guru, his spiritual pilgrimages served as a model and an inspiration. A number of his friends,
including Richard Alpert, aka Ram Das, or Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of Jewish Renewal,
led, specific groups. However, with all their influence they have not epitomized the era in the
manner Ginsberg did. It was not merely his prominent involvement with so many aspects of the
counterculture, from the political to the literary, that made his religious choices more important.
Ginsberg’s spiritual path did not focus on one idea or system and was rather eclectic and multi-faceted.
In this, his style meshed well with the countercultural norms and suited the spirit of the generation
for which Ginsberg served as an icon and a spokesperson. Serving as a symbol for Americans,
who joined, in the 1960s–1970s, Western forms of Asian religions, Ginsberg was a forerunner of
a growing movement. Buddhism in America attracted at that time larger numbers, mostly of the
educated middle classes members of society, who aspired to move beyond their older confessional
territories. These included Jews in disproportionate numbers, which was no coincidence. While
in East, or South-East Asia, Buddhist groups were often associated with specific ethnic, linguistic,
and cultural traditions, its Western proponents, perhaps especially Jews, have viewed their newly
acquired faith as representing universal values and as transferring parochial divides. They have often
interpreted that faith in almost abstract, non-theistic, terms, relating to it as a non-ethnic philosophical
and meditative system. Adopting such an outlook, most Jewish practitioners have viewed Buddhism
as a tradition that did not negate their origins and heritage. Jews who joined Buddhist groups were
not apostates who have turned their backs on their ancestral tradition, and defected to Christianity,
just as for Catholics joining Buddhism their choice was very different of that of Catholics turning to
Protestantism. Sociologists of religion, such as Mark Chaves, have pointed out that more than half
of adult Americans affiliate with religious groups in which they did not grow up.67 Jews, according
to some observations, have been at the forefront of spiritual explorations.68 However, most Jews
have been reluctant to renounce their original identity and wished to mesh with their new religious
interests with Jewish self-awareness. In fact, Ginsberg, and others, did not have to think long and hard

64 On the movement see (Miller 1999).

65 (Ball 2011).
66 See also (Morgen 2006, pp. 432–504).
67 For example, (Chaves 2017).
68 (Ariel 2011).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 15 of 17

about the relation between their Jewish identity and their Buddhist practices. The Beat poet certainly
viewed the practice of Buddhism as meshing well with his universal values, and his inclusive social
and cultural aspirations. He saw it as bringing into completion a long and variegated quilt. In one of
his last interviews, Ginsberg summed up his understanding of his true self:

I’m a Buddhist and I think the Buddhists would say there is no real permanent self in any
case but there are many appearances of self, so I’m certainly a Beat poet, and I’m certainly
Jewish, and I’m certainly gay, and I’m certainly an American, and I’m certainly a practicing
meditator, and, I suppose, a part of the counter-culture in America . . . 69

By that time, Ginsberg was not alone in asserting a varied and diverse identity. He epitomized a
new Jewish self-awareness. Jews had ventured out of their quarters long before Ginsberg’s spiritual
journey, but there was a new element in the Beat poet’s agenda and in that of others among his
contemporaries. He did not give up on or ran away from his Jewishness, but rather added numerous
layers, creating his own intellectual, cultural, political, and religious niche. In that, he signified a new
era in American religion. An era marked by greater freedom to pick-and-choose, move from one
community and spiritual system to another, and settle in a spiritual and communal niche of one’s
choice.70

Funding: This research received no external funding.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References
Albanese, Catherine. 2007. A Republic of Mind and Spirit. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Antonovsky, Aaron. 1985. From the Golden to the Promised Land: Americans in Israel. Folcroft: Folcroft Library.
Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem; a Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press.
Ariel, Yaakov. 2003. Hasidism in the Age of Aquarius: The House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco, 1967–1977.
Religion and American Culture 13: 139–65. [CrossRef]
Ariel, Yaakov. 2011. Jews and New Religious Movements: An Introductory Essay. Nova Religio: The Journal of New
and Emergent Religions 15: 5–21. [CrossRef]
Aschheim, Steven. 2007. Beyond the Border: the German Jewish Legacy Abroad. Princeton: Princeton University.
Baker, Deborah. 2008. A Blue Hand: The Tragicomic, Mind Altering Odyssey of Allen Ginsberg, a Holy Fool, a Rebel
Muse, a Dharma Bum, and His Prickly Bride in India. New York: Penguin.
Ball, Gordon. 2011. East Hill Farm: Seasons with Allen Ginsberg. Berkeley: Counterpoint.
BBC. 1994. Face to Face Interview. (ASV#21). London: BBC.
Buber, Martin. 1965. What is Common to All? In The Knowledge of Man: Selected Essays. Edited by Morris
S. Friedman. New York: Harper and Rowe, p. 100.
Chaves, Mark. 2017. American Religion: Contemporary Trends. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Clark, Tom. 1984. Jack Kerouac: A Biography. New York: Marlowe and Company.
Dinnerstein, Leonard. 1991. Antisemitism in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1956. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1959. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books, p. 40.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1968. Review of The Politics of Ecstasy. Village Voice, December 12.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1978. Plutonium Ode. In The CoEvolution Quarterly/Journal for the Protection of All Beings.
San Francisco: City Lights.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1984a. Journal Night Thoughts. In Collected Poems, 1947–1980. New York: Harper
Perennial Modern.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1984b. Collected Poems, 1947–1980. New York: Harper Perennial Modern, pp. 290–322.

69 http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/bbc-face-to-face-interview-1994-asv21.html.
70 (Rambo 1993; Tweed 2006; Albanese 2007).
Religions 2019, 10, 100 16 of 17

Ginsberg, Allen. 1988. Collected Poems 1947–1980. New York: Harper Perennia, pp. 614–16.
Ginsberg, Allen. 1996. Indian Journals March 1962–May 1963. New York: Grove Press.
Ginsberg, Allen. 2001. Allen Ginsberg Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews, 1958–1996. Edited by David Carter.
New York: Perennial, pp. 163–66.
Ginsberg, Allen. 2008. The Letters of Allen Ginsberg. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press.
Ginsberg, Allen. 2010a. Howl: The Obscenity Trial that Started a Revolution. Minneapolis: Werc Werk Works.
Ginsberg, Allen. 2010b. White Hand Society: The Psychedelic Partnership of Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg.
San Francisco: City Lights Bookstore, pp. 271–301.
Ginsberg, Allen, and David Carter. 2001. Spontaneous Mind: Selected Interviews 1958–1996. New York: Perennial,
pp. 201–4.
Ginsberg, Allen, and Louis Ginsberg. 2001. Family Business: Selected Letters between a Father and a Son. New York:
Bloomsbury, p. 231.
Gitlin, Todd. 1987. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. Toronto: Bantam Books.
Greenfield, Robert. 2006. Timothy Leary: A Biography. Orlando: Harcourt, p. 342.
Gurock, Jeffrey. 2012. Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920–2010. New York: New York University
Press.
Horowitz, Michael. 1984. Interview with Allen Ginsberg. Jewish Chronicle, June.
Kamenetz, Roger. 1994. The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India. New York:
Harper Collins.
Kashner, San. 2004. When I was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School. New York: Harper Collins.
Katz, Jacob. 1985. Out of the Ghetto. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, p. 195.
Kerouac, Jack, and Allen Ginsberg. 1955. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, The Letters. Edited by Bill Morgen and
David Stanford. New York: Viking, pp. 287–289.
Lewis, James, and Henrik Bogdan. 2014. Sexuality and New Religious Movements. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Magid, Shaul. 2015. Between Paradigm Shift Judaism and Neo Hasidism: The New Metaphysics of Jewish
Renewal. Tikkun 30: 11–15. [CrossRef]
McLoughlin, Kate. 2006. Dead Prayer? The Liturgical and Literary Kaddish. Studies in American Jewish Literature
25: 4–25.
Miller, Timothy. 1999. The 60s Religious Communes: Hippies and Beyond. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Morgen, Bill. 2006. I Celebrate Myself: The Life of Allen Ginsberg. New York: Penguin, pp. 4–32.
Omer, Dan. 1967. Nahama: An Anthology of American Beat Poetry. Edited and Translated into Hebrew by Dan Omer.
Jerusalem: Marcus.
Peck, Michael. 2017. A Conversation between Ezra Pound and Allen Ginsberg. In First Thought Conversations with
Allen Ginsberg. Edited by Michael Schumacher. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 30–37.
Podhoretz, Norman. 1958. The Know Nothing Bohemians. Partisan Review 25: 305–18.
Podhoretz, Norman. 1997. My War with Allen Ginsberg. Commentary 104: 2.
Podhoretz, Norman. 1999. Ex-Friends: Falling out with Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman,
Hannah Arendt, and Norman Mailer. New York: Free Press.
Rambo, Louis. 1993. Understanding Religious Conversion. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Raz, Rivka. 1972. Mourning an Unbalanced Mother. Seven Days 21: 12–13.
Scholem, Gershom. 1983. From Berlin to Jerusalem. New York: Schocken.
Scholem, Gershom. 2017. On Jews and Judaism in Crisis-Selected Essays, Gershom Scholem—The Allen Ginsberg
Project. Available online: https://allenginsberg.org/2017/12/s-d-24/ (accessed on 18 August 2018).
Schultz, John. 1999. No One Was Killed: The Democratic National Convention, August 1968. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Schumacher, Michael. 1992. Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg. New York: St. Martin’s Press, p. 207.
Shapiro, Garry. 2005. Columbia Celebrates its Beat Writers. New York Sun, October 17.
Shavit, Yaakov. 1987. The New Hebrew Nation: A Study of Israeli Heresy and Fantasy. London: Routeledge.
Shinder, Jason. 2006. The Poem that Changed America: Howl Fifty Years Later. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Silberman, Steve. 2017. No More Bagels. In First Thought Conversations with Allen Ginsberg. Edited by
Michael Schumacher. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 187.
Srebrnik, Henry. 2010. Dreams of Nationhood. Boston: Academic Studies Press.
Stevens, Jay. 1987. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. New York: Grove Press.
Religions 2019, 10, 100 17 of 17

Trungpa, Chogyam. 2012. Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoch. New York: Kino Lober.
Tweed, Thomas A. 2006. Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion. Cambridge: Harvard.
Warner, Simon. 2005. Howl for Now: A Celebration of Allen Ginsberg’s Epic Poem. Pontefract: Route.
Watson, Steven. 1995. The Birth of the Beat Generation. Available online: https://www.facebook.com/photo.
php?fbid=1560139550926388&set=gm.766448850137225&type=1&theater (accessed on 12 September 2018).
Wieseltier, Leon. 1998. Kaddish. New York: Knopf.
Wolff, Tobias. 1994. In Pharaoh’s Army: Memoirs of the Lost War. New York: Knopf.

© 2019 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).