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MEADVILLE, Pa. – Feb. 9, 2011 – Rodger Kamenetz, author of the international bestseller “The Jew in the Lotus,” will present the annual Samuel Schick Lecture at Allegheny College at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 23, in the Tippie Alumni Center. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled  “What I Learned About Judaism from the Dalai Lama: Spiritual Ecology and the Endangered Species of Religion.”

“The Jew in the Lotus” describes the historic dialogue that occurred when the Dalai Lama asked Jews to give him the secret of spiritual survival in exile. Kamenetz’s lecture at Allegheny will explore the sense of threat that is common to spiritual traditions today in the world of global competition and the exchange of survival secrets that occurred between rabbis and Buddhist monks as each came to discover the power of true dialogue.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought, Kamenetz is the author of nine other books, including five books of poetry. His most recent book is a dual biography, “Burnt Books: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and Franz Kafka.” Kamenetz is Distinguished Professor of English and Religious Studies Emeritus at Louisiana State University.

The Samuel Schick Lecture Series is made possible by a gift from the Barry and Florence Friedberg Family Philanthropic Fund. For more information about the lecture, contact the college’s Office of Spiritual and Religious Life at 814-332-2800 or rellife@allegheny.edu.

The lecture is also part of Allegheny’s Year of Global Citizenship, a series of events and activities aimed at enhancing the campus and community’s understanding of what it means to be a citizen in an increasingly globalized world. For more information on the Year of Global Citizenship, visit www.allegheny.edu/yearof.