The legacy Hashlamah article used five modern biographies to introduce readers to Jewish–Sufi crossings that are often omitted from conventional narratives of either Judaism or Islam.
Rafi Yahya Abdullah Sharif-Bey
Born Yale Jean Singer to an Orthodox Jewish American family, Sharif-Bey moved through several Muslim and Moorish movements and helped form a Sufi order while continuing to explore connections between his Jewish origins and Islam.
Samuel L. Lewis — “Sufi Sam”
Raised in a Jewish family, Lewis became a major American Sufi and countercultural spiritual teacher, ultimately founding the organization now known as Sufi Ruhaniat International.
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
The founder of Jewish Renewal studied Sufism, received recognition within a Sufi lineage, and later helped create a consciously Sufi–Hasidic fellowship.
Netanel Miles-Yépez
A student and collaborator of Schachter-Shalomi, Miles-Yépez became a leading teacher in the Inayati-Maimuni Sufi–Hasidic current.
Dr. Micah Ben David Naziri
Hashlamah’s founder describes his own approach as Judeo-Sufi and situates that identity within older Jewish engagement with Islamic mystical vocabulary and practice.
The older story is larger than five people
The modern profiles make most sense beside the medieval Maimonidean pietists and other historical Jewish communities that developed inside Islamicate civilization.