Lawrence Bush
Lawrence Bush has been a creative force in the American Jewish community as an author, essayist, visual artist and magazine editor for nearly three decades. He edits Jewish Currents, a 61-year old magazine now published by the Workmen's Circle, for which he conducts a “Religion and Skepticism” column.
Bush was a speechwriter for a dozen years for Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, the late leader of Reform Judaism in America, and also served for thirteen years as the founding editor of the magazine of the Reconstructionist movement, Reconstructionism Today. Bush’s newest book, Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, explores the generational factors that led baby-boomers down the path of spirituality. His 1983 historical novel, Bessie: A Novel of Love and Revolution, has also just been reissued in paperback by Ben Yehuda Press.
Bush was the editor and commentator on the millennium edition of Leo Rosten’s classic The Joys of Yiddish. His other books include American Torah Toons: 54 Illustrated Commentaries, Jews, Money and Social Responsibility (with Jeffrey Dekro), and two fictions for adolescents, Rooftop Secrets and Emma Ansky-Levine and Her Mitzvah Machine. His essays, fiction and artwork have appeared in the New York Times, Village Voice, MAD magazine, Tikkun, Reform Judaism, and other publications, and his writings have been anthologized in Best Jewish Writing 2003; Hallucinogens: A Reader; The 54th Century; and A Mentsh Among Men.
Books
Waiting for God (2008)
Bessie (1983; reprint edition 2007)
Video
In this video, Lawrence Bush reads his poem, "When Moshiakh Comes"