Buddhism in Israel

Israel's Population Register does not record Buddhists separately. The Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research's 2025 Statistical Yearbook places Buddhists, Hindus, Samaritans, non-Arab Christians, and other groups in the category "Others," which also includes people not classified by religion. In household data, the category "other religions" includes religion unknown or no religious affiliation; only the head of household is asked about religion, and that answer is assigned to all household members. Although census-based estimates include foreigners, the foreign population does not appear in the Yearbook's data tables.[1] The INSS notes that until the 1995 census, people in the mixed "Others" category were included in the Arab population figure, further complicating historical comparison.[2]

Among Israel's resident population, Buddhists appear primarily in two documented contexts: foreign nationals and Israelis who have adopted Buddhist practice. The U.S. Department of State's 2023 religious-freedom report identifies Buddhists among the religious groups represented among more than 191,000 foreign nationals in Israel — including migrant workers, undocumented workers, and asylum seekers — without providing a Buddhist-specific total.[3] An earlier State Department report from 2003 described Israel's roughly 250,000 guest workers as "predominantly Roman Catholic and Buddhist," though again without isolating a Buddhist headcount.[4]

Israel's law recognizes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Baha'i Faith, and the Druze religion. Buddhism is not among the recognized religious communities. One practical distinction concerns property taxation: recognized communities' places of worship are exempt from taxation, while some unrecognized groups have received exemptions for their houses of worship. Buddhists did not receive such an exemption under the arrangements described in the 2023 reporting period.[3][5]

A 2013 Globes feature reported that Buddhism had begun to take organized shape in Israel only at the beginning of the new millennium, later than in Western countries where it spread during the 1960s counterculture. The feature said that many of the people leading this process were immigrants from the former Soviet Union.[6]

By 2013, Israel had developed a recognizable landscape of Buddhist associations. The Globes feature listed at least ten major Buddhist organizations active in the country: Friends of Tibet in Israel, Friends of the Dharma, Tovana, the Newman Association, Diamond Way, Beit Bhavana, the Israeli Classical Buddhist Group, a Buddhist mindfulness community, the Psycho-Dharma school of Buddhist psychology, and a Zen Buddhist school. The Israeli Classical Buddhist Group included a practice center in the Arava desert.[6] Avi Par, co-founder of the website Buddhism Israel, estimated at the time that about 100 regular groups operated across the country, with several dozen local teachers and tens of thousands of Israelis studying Buddhism in some form.[6]

The three main Buddhist traditions — Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana — were all represented, with organizations and groups often operating in relative isolation from one another.[6] Diamond Way, affiliated with the Vajrayana tradition, had approximately 120 practitioners spread across five Israeli centers as of 2013, compared with 650 centers worldwide. A retreat at a farm in Even Sapir was led by Gabi Wollenko, a student of Diamond Way founder Lama Ole Nydahl, and included repeated prostrations, humming, and silent meditation. Participants described their practice as experiential and practical rather than based on religious belief or ritual.[6]

Tovana teacher Lila Kimhi reported that hundreds of Israelis had attended the organization's holiday retreats and that her most recent course had dozens of participants, with continuing waiting lists.[6] A Dharma house in the Druze village of Isfiya, in the Carmel, hosted practitioners who rented the space for about 2,000 shekels per month and met every other Saturday with visitors from across the country; Tibetan teachers visited periodically.[6]

Religious-studies scholar Tomer Persico characterized the Western form discussed in the feature as a kind of secular Buddhism. He noted that the modern Buddhist meditation-course format emerged in the twentieth century and that Buddhist-derived practices have been adopted as therapeutic or psychological methods by educators, psychologists, and businesspeople.[6]

Israeli interest in Buddhism has taken several forms: travel to Buddhist centers in Asia, engagement with meditation techniques at home, and the blending of Buddhist practices into Jewish spiritual life. Young Israeli backpackers travel to Buddhist centers in Asia by the thousands, and Vipassana retreats in India have been described as extremely popular with Israeli travelers.[7][8] One account, citing a 2001 observation from The Jerusalem Report, suggests Israelis were drawn to Buddhism because they perceived it as offering "a serene respite" from the tension and violence of life in Israel.[7]

David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister, was a serious student of Buddhist meditation techniques, and a National Library of Israel article documents his visit to Burma — now Myanmar — in 1961.[7][8] His interest provides a prominent example of an Israeli public figure engaging with Buddhist thought.

Engagement with Buddhism does not necessarily imply conversion or departure from Jewish identity. The term "JUBU" — combining "Jew" and "Buddhist" — emerged in the later twentieth century to describe Jews who meditate or follow Buddhist teachings while remaining rooted in Jewish culture.[8] The Dalai Lama reportedly used the term "Jewbus" to describe Jewish Buddhists.[6] My Jewish Learning describes Buddhism's non-theistic character as one reason some Jews find it accessible, while observing that traditionally religious Jewish perspectives may regard Buddhist practices as conflicting with the prohibition against avodah zarah, or idolatry.[7]

The fusion of Buddhist and Jewish practice became visible in the Israeli Jewish spiritual renewal movement that developed at the end of the 1990s under the influence of North American Jewish spirituality. Hamakom, opened in 2000 under Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi and initially called Yeshiva-Ashram, settled in the northern Judean Desert. Researcher Rachel Werczberger observed Buddhist meditation, shamanic rituals, and Sufi chanting integrated into traditional Jewish prayer there.[9] Shortly after Hamakom's founding, Rabbi Mordechai (Marc) Gafni established Bayit Chadash as an urban prayer community in Jaffa.[9] Both communities drew participants whom the study describes as typically upper-middle-class, Ashkenazi, and non-Orthodox. Neither lasted beyond six years, but the study distinguishes their collapse from the broader Jewish renewal project, which continued in the form of the "Israeli Judaism" movement.[9]

The same study identifies the fusion of Judaism with Buddhist thought and practice, especially Jewish mindfulness, as another form of contemporary Jewish spirituality, without estimating how many people in Israel engage in it.[9]

Buddhist Asia and Israel have intersected through several notable diplomatic and cultural events. In March 1994, the Dalai Lama made a four-day visit to Israel as a guest of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.[10] On arrival, he received an honorary degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and visited religious sites, meeting Druze and Baha'i leaders in the north.[10] No Israeli government official met him in an official capacity; a spokesman described the trip as a personal pilgrimage rather than a political visit.[10] The Dalai Lama expressed faith in the Israel-Arab peace process during his stay.[10]

In 2016, Israel's Foreign Ministry, the American Jewish Committee, and the World Council of Religious Leaders planned an interfaith dialogue in Jerusalem for September 11–15. Advance reporting described it as a first-of-its-kind civilizational dialogue intended to deepen cultural and spiritual ties alongside Israel's growing relations with East Asia.[11] Buddhist participants named in the report included Xue Cheng, president of the Buddhist Association of China; Taiwanese abbot Hsin Bao; Korean monk Kim Wan Doo of Seoul's Seon Sangdo Meditation Center; and Burmese monk Ashin Nyanissara.[11] Israeli Orthodox and progressive rabbis and academics were also expected to attend, though no haredi representatives were involved.[11] The advance report did not establish whether the event ultimately took place as planned.

On May 12, 2025, Nepal's ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit, hosted a Buddha Jayanti celebration at his residence in Herzliya, marking 2,569 years since the Buddha's birth.[12] The event included traditional prayers and offerings at a ceremonial altar and was attended by diplomatic envoys from Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and India, as well as Nepalese residents of Israel.[12] Pandit presented Lumbini in Nepal as the Buddha's birthplace and invoked themes of non-violence, compassion, mindfulness, and understanding.[12]

The National Library of Israel holds more than 100 pieces of Buddhist art and created an online exhibition featuring 139 Buddhist paintings from the collection of Elizabeth Anna Gordon, a Christian supporter of the early Zionist movement who studied Japanese Buddhism and bequeathed part of her collection to the Library.[8] The collection is an unusual material link between early Zionist history and Buddhist cultural heritage.

The absence of official demographic data means estimates of Buddhist participation require caution. Avi Par's 2013 estimate of tens of thousands of Israelis studying Buddhism in some form was an organizer's assessment reported by Globes, not a census finding.[6] The same reporting records disagreement over whether Western and Israeli Buddhist practice should be understood as New Age spirituality or as a secular, practical, or psychological form of Buddhism; some practitioners rejected the New Age label.[6]

Within Jewish religious thought, opinion on Buddhist practice is divided. Traditional perspectives may regard certain practices as conflicting with the prohibition against idolatry, while other religious and non-religious voices hold that meditation and Buddhist philosophy can be integrated into Jewish life without formal conversion.[7] Buddhism's lack of formal state recognition and the reported denial of property-tax exemptions to Buddhist houses of worship illustrate practical distinctions between recognized and unrecognized religious communities in the 2023 reporting period.[3][5]