Rabbi Zac Kamenetz grew up terrified of drugs, believing they fried users’ brains and caused birth defects later in life. Today he is CEO of Shefa, meaning “flowing abundance” in Hebrew, a nonprofit he founded in 2020 that educates the Jewish community about the “risks and rewards” of psychedelic use.

A self-described former “dare kid in Southern California,” Kamenetz’s views expanded after his first experience with psilocybin, during a 2017 Johns Hopkins’ and NYU study for religious professionals. Two things became clear: both the Jewish and psychedelic communities needed help.

“If psychedelics were going to become more available, more often, to more people, the Jewish community is not ready to absorb all the power and potential and problems that psychedelic use might pose to Jewish theology, Jewish community, Jewish creativity,” he told eJewishPhilanthropy. “And second, even though I was really well-cared-for by the Hopkins team, there were a few nuances of my needs as a Jew and as a rabbi that went unaddressed because they couldn’t be as culturally informed about my needs.”

To address those two concerns, Shefa is teaming with Emory University for a national population study of Jewish Americans’ perspectives on psychedelics. Gathering data with an online questionnaire and follow-up interviews, the study — titled “Jewish Journeys” — launched in early November seeking to explore perspectives across the Jewish and psychedelic spectrum.

“We’re not giving anyone drugs,” Kamenetz said. “We want to know why people are using these drugs. This is not condoning or condemning. This is wanting to understand the reality. That’s a principle of harm reduction. We’re not here to judge, one way or the other. We just want to know what it is so that we can actually address it.”

The study is funded by Common Era, the research and development wing of the Jim Joseph Foundation, which seeks to find new ways to connect with young Jews who may be disconnected from the community otherwise. Learning how the psychedelic community intersects with the Jewish community can lead to Jewish institutions better serving them. “Data gathered from this research will be useful in evaluating potential strategies, both cultural and religious, in an emerging and increasingly populated space,” said Yonah Schiller, chief R&D officer at Common Era.

In America, psychedelic use is skyrocketing and people are speaking openly about their experiences. Across social media, celebrities and influencers rave about ayahuasca retreats and microdosing. Psychedelics are studied as a mental health treatment, and a 2023 University of California, Berkeley study showed that 61% of American voters support legalizing psychedelics for regulated medical use. For many, psychedelics are a way to connect spiritually.

Along with the excitement about their potential, there is also concern, Kamenetz said.

He estimates that there are a million Jewish American adults who use psychedelics. “There is something about Jews seeking transcendence, even outside of normative religious or spiritual contexts,” Kamenetz said, pointing to the abundance of Jewish Deadheads and Phishheads, who follow the bands Grateful Dead and Phish, respectively, and are deeply enmeshed in the culture surrounding them.

Even Jews who don’t use psychedelics are using a mind-altering substance — wine — every Friday night for Kiddush, he said. “People are already shifting their consciousness with substances. Those are ones that you can pick up in the corner market.” 

Guns and alcohol are the leading cause of preventable deaths in America, he pointed out. “Why are some substances OK, and why are some substances not OK?”

The study seeks to vet 1,500 participants – some who have tried psychedelics, some who are curious and others who are skeptical – to answer a 20-to-25-minute survey with questions about beliefs and experiences with psychedelics, followed by 25 in-depth follow-up interviews. The substances focused on include LSD (acid), psilocybin (mushrooms), MDMA (ecstasy, molly), ibogaine, (ayahuasca, buffo), ketamine and mescaline (peyote, san pedro).

Survey questions include if respondents believe psychedelics are good for society, illegal, addictive and more dangerous than alcohol. There are questions about spirituality and connection to Judaism. For people who’ve used psychedelics, the survey looks into how they prepared for the experience and if they had positive or negative experiences.

It’s important to learn just how stigmatized psychedelics are in the Jewish community because researchers don’t even know that much, Roman Palitsky, director of research projects in spiritual health at Emory University, told eJP.

“Sometimes, religious communities lag behind the broad population in being helped out by mental health services,” Aaron D. Cherniak, a clinical psychologist, rabbi and Ph.D. candidate at Stockholm University in Sweden and Israel’s Reichman University, studying the intersection of spirituality/religion and psychedelic use, told eJP. “It is incumbent on community leaders to understand the needs of their members,” he said, because the increase in accessibility and usage is going to change the “social fabric of some religious communities.”

Many Jews who are having spiritual experiences on psychedelics yearn to connect with the Jewish community, but religious leaders see the topic as taboo. 

“You don’t talk about your drug use in polite society,” Kamenetz said. He hopes the study normalizes conversations. “[Religious leaders] don’t have to condone drug use. They can choose however to orient, but they should be well-informed about who these people are, what they need, and how you might orient yourselves toward their experience and being open to their experience and to harness their excitement and determination to be part of Jewish community.”

Because of rising antisemitism, including in psychedelic communities, it is important to create safe spaces for those who are going to use, no matter your position on their use, Kamenetz said. He hopes that the research will help those studying psychedelics as a medical intervention will become more culturally competent as a result of the study.

“Jews have unique trauma patterns, trauma histories,” he said. “They have unique theologies that might determine how they are presented with these medicines.”  

Many use psychedelics because “there’s suffering and yearning and trauma in all sorts of different ways people are trying to address,” Kamenetz said. “But they’re doing it outside of a context where there could be the best outcomes for these people.”

Ideally, people using psychedelics would receive guidance to achieve optimal experiences, but instead, “People are handed medicine,” he said. “They have these experiences for six, eight, 12 hours, and then everybody goes home. What happens after the fact is probably the most important part of this. How can we help people integrate and make the most meaning of their experiences after they’ve happened?”

People in psychedelic circles have a range of views about whether psychedelics are part of Jewish tradition and history, with some saying Moses had a psychedelic experience when he saw the burning bush. There are also debates on if psychedelics serve any purpose in Jewish religious traditions at all, with concerns about how they impact the communal aspects of the faith by having individuals have unique spiritual experiences. Many Jews in psychedelic communities turn to indigenous traditions feeling as if “Judaism may not have the toolbox to support safe and meaningful psychedelic use,” Cherniak said. The survey, he hopes, will show “how Jews have tried to create one.”