"A timely and yet history-rich reflection on the nature of exile and the refugee experience, Maymind’s book is a keenly conducted exercise in drawing insights interculturally about the origins and effortful perfecting of empathy. Engaged through the lenses of Shinran’s and Maimonides’ biographies of exile, the concept of human nature is shown to have an often unsettling depth of relational complexity, which Maymind then skillfully weaves into broader reflections on the ethical necessity of exile from familiar patterns of presupposition and prejudice. Exile and Otherness builds a case for embracing strangeness in the pursuit, not simply of greater tolerance for difference, but of achieving ever greater qualities of mutual inclusion."--Peter D. Hershock, East-West Center

Peter D. Hershock, Asian Studies Development Program

Students of religion who are uncertain what is to be gained by comparing figures so seemingly disparate as Shinran and Maimonides will find provocative answers in Ilana Maymind’s Exile and Otherness. By juxtaposing the Japanese and Jewish thinkers, this highly original text evokes insights and questions about each that independent treatments would never elicit; and, moreover, readers without special interests in either of these seminal philosophers will be rewarded with more general observations about the ethics of exile and about the ways in which implicit theories of human nature (which she makes explicit) impinge on every aspect of their respective oeuvres. Along with the ample and carefully documented particulars, Maymind thereby also provides us a compelling demonstration of the continuing value of comparative religious studies.

Lindsay Jones, The Ohio State University

A gripping exploration into the lives of two exiles: Shinran, a Buddhist monk from Japan, and Maimonides, a Jewish scholar from Islamic Spain. All they have in common is the experience of exile, and yet Ilana Maymind created an intricate comparative study that will appeal to philosophers and researchers of exiles, in particular in connection with the ethical implications of diasporic lives and the construction of hybrid identities. A truly compelling narrative.

Tamara Albertini, University of Hawai'i