Buddhist Anti-Semitism

Key Findings:

This op-ed explores the presence of antisemitic views in Buddhism. The author acknowledges that this crossover is not widely discussed — “antisemitism is not as much of a problem within Buddhism as it is among other world religions such as Christianity or Islam.”

The author begins by highlighting Buddhism’s orientalist depiction in the West, claiming it to be a "fantasy of Western exoticism”. According to the author, Buddhism is possibly not as “non-violent" as it is often made out to be. 

The author cites histories of dictatorship, power, and violence that exists within Buddhism. The author then cites various terror attacks from around the globe, carried out by individuals of various denominations, but all sharing the common denominator of having shown support for Buddhist ideology online or in their personal lives previous to these acts. The author states that while these attacks were not solely targeted towards Jews, the same violent ideologies that led these individuals to carry out the terror attacks were the same ideologies that prompted them to harbor antisemitic views. The author makes the argument that because these individuals showed signs of Buddhist values, these values could be in some way, held accountable for their behavior. 

The author does acknowledge however, that these examples are not representative of the Buddhist demographic at large.