Editor’s note: Jews are often spiritual seekers. Maybe that's because questioning is baked into Judaism. So it shouldn't surprise us that some of those questions lead Jews far from home. For author Blair Glaser, life on an ashram in what was formerly the Borscht Belt — a Jewish resort turned Hindu spiritual community — both fed her spiritual hunger and, unexpectedly, provided a path back to Judaism. — Howard Lovy
When I was five, my parents schlepped me to my grandfather’s Orthodox shul in Brooklyn for Yom Kippur. As we entered the dusty, cavernous shul, my beloved older cousin Ricky was whisked away to the men’s side. I tried to get his attention by sending psychic brain waves for him to look at me. Mostly, I failed. Then, for what seemed like days, the whole congregation stood, sat, and stood again. The operatic cantor bellowed. When I kicked up my legs to look at my patent-leather Mary Janes, or whispered, “I’m hungry,” to my mother, she gave me a stern look.
By the time I was eight, I dreaded the High Holy Days, because that was the only time we went to services. But my grandparents kept kosher, honored the Sabbath, and went to temple more often. One night, after dinner, I asked my mother if we were really Jewish.
“Of course. It’s a race and a religion,” my mother said, taking a drag off her cigarette. She repeated that phrase through the years, but I didn’t truly grasp its meaning, because being Jewish in New York City in the 1970s and ’80s was like being a fish in water. I went to a bar or bat mitzvah nearly every other weekend in middle school. And although there were fewer Jews in my huge public high school, the ones I knew also lived very Reform—i.e., the least religious level of Judaism—lives. We didn’t go to temple much if at all, ate bacon at greasy diners, and some even had Christmas trees. I associated being Jewish with rituals that were performed for tradition’s sake: because you were supposed to. But for me, they lacked any spiritual dimension.
And then, on the heels of a grueling college depression, a deep spiritual hunger and curiosity emerged. I started asking existential questions; reading philosophy and New Age books; meeting new, spiritually inclined friends; and attending workshops and classes geared toward meditation, healing, and empowerment. When a guy took me to his meditation center on a date, I was intrigued, but aghast when people started bowing to a picture of his guru propped up on a chair. I was Jewish enough to know that worshipping idols was a big no-no.
That night, I never imagined that nine months later, on my knees with a death wish and a fistful of pills, I’d end up repeating a bastardized version of the mantra I’d learned, and experience how transformative chanting and meditation could be. Or that the practice, known as Siddha Yoga, rooted in the mystic Hindu tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, would become my path. Or that I would become such a serious student that I’d live in an ashram—a place dedicated to spiritual practice.
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If you’ve ever seen Dirty Dancing, or season two of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you’re familiar with the Catskill Jewish summer resort: a bunch of bungalows by a lake, with evening entertainment and dining in a grand main building. From the 1920s through the 1970s, Jewish immigrants—often barred from country clubs and fancy hotels—flocked to these accommodations in the Catskill Mountains of New York, known as the “Borscht Belt,” and less frequently, the “Jewish Alps.” By the mid-seventies, more access had opened for Jews and most of these hotels had been abandoned and were in various states of disrepair. The Siddha Yoga Dham Association purchased three to create the Shree Muktananda Ashram, their US headquarters in South Fallsburg, New York.
When I first moved into this once-Jewish-resort-turned-Hindu-mystic ashram in 1993, I wasn’t thinking about being Jewish at all. I was fantasizing about becoming a monk. But after living at the ashram for a year—chanting and meditating daily, performing selfless service as an office admin and workshop leader, and discovering who I was—that shifted. One evening, I found myself standing alone in the empty ashram restaurant, known as Amrit. I had been instructed, via a while you were out memo slipped under my door, to show up at 6 p.m. for a special dinner—no context. That was often how ashram instructions were given, a cryptic note under your door telling you where to be and when.
My face grew hot as I stood alone and stared at a table set for ten on the enclosed porch. While I waited, I contemplated defying “orders” and heading to the communal dining hall where most of us ate our free meals. But I was too curious. Gurumayi, the spiritual head of the ashram and the Siddha Yoga Path, had just returned to India. Some devotees were being invited to join her there. I fantasized that the dinner would be a formal invitation and discussion.
Finally, a program director strolled in, followed by a few others I knew but not well. It was a random grouping that I couldn’t classify by department, age, or time spent in Siddha Yoga. Gurumayi’s longtime senior aide, Maya, sat at one end of the table just as a booming male voice entered the Amrit. It belonged to Rabbi Gelberman, who was sharing wisdom with a few stragglers before taking the seat at the other head.
Maya announced that the dinner was in honor of the visiting rabbi, the head of the Interfaith Seminary in New York City. Gelberman was in his seventies, with Einstein-like hair and a Groucho Marx sense of humor. A few kitchen sevites brought bowls of biryani and dal to the table. I wasn’t used to being waited on by people I chanted with every day, and I overcompensated by offering excessive thanks each time they approached. As we ate, the rabbi shared his admiration for Gurumayi and entertained us with stories about Krishnamurti, Martin Luther King, and other luminaries he had mingled with. He flirted with a young woman who I thought was his assistant, but turned out to be his wife. After dinner, he engaged us in a spiritual “game” of picking an angel card—a little purple card with an angel on one side, and a word like abundance on the other—and interpreting its meaning. As the card readings dragged on, I wondered, Why am I even here?
Then it was my turn. I picked “creativity,” and the rabbi told me I had some blocked creative energy that needed to be expressed. Maya caught my eyes and rolled hers. Something about the complicity and sisterhood in her sarcasm prompted me to finally realize: everyone at that table was there because we were Jewish.
I wondered how the administration knew—I never talked about my Jewishness or checked a box stating its existence. On reflection, I might have visited home during the High Holy Days. I felt jada—the Sanskrit term for thick-headed—for not getting it sooner. Although Gelberman’s Interfaith Seminary was for the instruction and celebration of all faiths, because he was a rabbi, Gurumayi summoned the ashram’s Jews to welcome him and make him feel at home. The realization left me with a mix of sensations: proud of my heritage, honored to be selected, but also set apart. Being on a spiritual path had not erased my Jewishness.
My mother’s oft-uttered words, “It’s a race and a religion,” resounded in my head.
After the dinner, I discovered that Rabbi Gelberman had come that night to personally present Gurumayi with an award for her spiritual leadership, which would be formally given a few weeks later at the graduation ceremony of Interfaith students. Since Gurumayi was in India, I, along with Jewish Maya and a non-Jewish high-level swami, was selected to accept the award on her behalf at the majestic St. John’s Cathedral in Manhattan.
Sitting beneath the cathedral’s soaring arches, witnessing a beautiful cohort of new Interfaith ministers graduate, I relished my role as a Jewish Ambassador. It made me feel special, included in Gurumayi’s thoughts, and unique. Later that night at the ashram, staring up at the springs of the bunk above me, I reflected on my Jewishness and felt remorse that the religion of my blood had not been fulfilling for me.
My time at the ashram yielded sacred spiritual experiences I did not find in Judaism. But eventually, the repetitive nature of ashram life, the groupthink, bowing down to a teacher, and the gossip of a looming scandal made me rethink my devout life. Although I had gained quite a bit of discipline and grounding in spiritual practice, some of the swamis at the ashram did not seem enlightened or even particularly happy. I started to question everything: my life choices, the integrity of the organization, the concept of enlightenment. But the thought of leaving ashram life was difficult considering I’d put so much time and energy into it, even becoming a meditation teacher and course leader. As I questioned and carefully weighed the pros and cons of moving on, I was unaware of just how much inquiry and debate are distinctly Jewish traits and religious scholarly practices. Through my questioning, I found my way out.
After I left, the ways that ashram practices mirrored different aspects of Jewish life began to reveal themselves. Over cocktails (I returned to secular life quickly), I explained the ashram to a new friend. I feared she would judge the way I’d spent my early twenties. But instead, she shared that communal living, with its notions of selfless service on behalf of the community, reminded her of her time living on a kibbutz, where she felt happy and connected in ways she hadn’t before or since.
That conversation inspired reflection on other aspects of Siddha Yoga that had always reminded me of more Orthodox Jewish practices: the ashram’s modest dress code and separation of sexes in the meditation hall, the food laws (which at the ashram were vegetarianism), daily food blessings, morning prayers, and a spiritual authority with whom you consulted about major life decisions. Even the frequent use of the Sanskrit word Shiva (primordial being) at the ashram conjured the Hebrew word yeshiva (sacred study). When I shared with a Jewish relative that I had worked in the ashram in the Dakshina (sacred offering) department, he nodded and said, “Ah, like Terumah, the Hebrew word for temple donation.”
But it was at my grandmother’s funeral, when the rabbi shared the Jewish mystical origin story, that I felt that I had been practicing Judaism in my own way all along. The Jewish creation myth reveals how divine light was poured into vessels that were not strong enough to hold it, and they shattered, scattering sparks of divine light everywhere; sparks seeking reconnection. The task of Jewish peoples, tikkun olam, is to fix that brokenness by bringing that divine light into everything we do, because we are each a part of it. Listening to the rabbi at the cold, gray cemetery, the Siddha Yoga refrain, G-d dwells with you as you, echoed in my mind. Through my spiritual detour, I had been trying to get my spark lit. And I had.
Although I never did turn back toward strict Jewish spiritual observance, over the years I have gained more respect for tradition, especially for how it brings people together and enriches the lives of my friends and family. The current resurgence of antisemitism has fueled this trend, and I now host most of the Jewish holiday meals at my house for friends and family. I’ve been connecting online in a deeper way with other Jews who crave community and centering. My Jewish identity is deepening on a whole new level.
When I sit at my table this New Year, I will honor the good people around it, each trying to serve the world in their own ways. A race, a religion, and all of us sparks, bouncing around, looking for the next fire to keep us warm.
Blair Glaser is a writer and leadership consultant whose essays have appeared in Fortune, LitHub, The Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, Longreads, and others, as well as in literary magazines such as Brevity, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, and In Short. She is the creator of the HI (Human Intelligence) Stack. Her debut memoir, This Incredible Longing: Finding My Self in a Near-Cult Experience (Heliotrope, February 2026) tells the story of her time leading up to and living in a Catskills ashram. She lives with her husband and dog-ter, Vanna White, in Venice Beach, California. More can be found at www.blairglaser.com
Five tiny delights
Going to bed and looking forward to that first sip of morning coffee
Waking up to the buttery LA sunlight
Being immersed in a character-driven novel
Hearing my dog’s soft snore beside me as I write
Catching my husband’s amber eyes and holding our gaze for a moment
Five tiny Jewish delights
Realizing I somehow know the tunes and many words of Jewish classic hymns
Discussing what’s for dinner while eating bagels and lox for brunch
The home-wide scent of holiday brisket
The wisdom of Jewish mourning rituals
Discovering a true ally
This is beautiful, Blair! Thank you!
This is the perfect companion piece I was hoping for after reading your wonderful book!