In October 1990, Kamenetz was invited to observe an historic dialogue between rabbis and the XIV Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The Dalai Lama had asked the Jewish delegates to share with him "the secret of Jewish spiritual survival in exile." His account of this exchange, The Jew in the Lotus (1994), was a popular success and became an international best-seller. Writing in the New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg cited its broader relevance as a book "about the survival of esoteric traditions in a world bent on destroying them." The book was primarily potent in capturing an ongoing engagement in the US between Jews, often highly secularized, and Buddhist teachings. Kamenetz popularized the term JUBU or Jewish Buddhist, interviewing poet Allen Ginsberg, vipassana teacher Joseph Goldstein, Ram Dass and other American Jews involved with bringing Eastern traditions to the West.