Rabbi Jay Michaelson is a contributing columnist for the Forward and for Rolling Stone. He is the author of 10 books, and won the 2023 New York Society for Professional Journalists award for opinion writing.
Jay MichaelsonContributing Columnist
By Jay Michaelson
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Opinion On Thanksgiving, Confronting Our Country’s Bitter Past of Slavery
“A person is obligated to see himself as if he were leaving Egypt.” This instruction from the Talmud may not seem timely at the moment, as American Jews prepare to celebrate the conjoined holidays of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving rather than Passover. But thanks to the visceral, devastating film “12 Years a Slave,” we have a…
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Culture Seeking Harmony and Finding Transcendence at The Cloisters
Janet Cardiff’s “The Forty Part Motet” is a transcendent work of art. Consisting of forty speakers arranged in an oval, each playing the separately recorded voice of a member of a choir, it envelops the listener in a sea of sound. And now, installed (until December 8) in a reconstructed 12th century church at The…
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Opinion Answer This Question: Why Be Jewish?
Let’s call it a Pew-haha, these last few weeks of hand wringing, debate, and general brouhaha about the recent Pew survey on American Judaism. “Of making books there is no end,” Ecclesiastes reminds us. Op-eds, too. Now that the dust is settling, perhaps it’s worth asking a seemingly obvious question: Who cares? And more importantly,…
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Opinion George W. Bush Embraces Jews for Jesus
Who’s surprised that former President George W. Bush is speaking at the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute benefit? Not anyone who understands Christian Zionism, ‘Jews for Jesus,’ and the many links between them. Christian Zionists are now the leading supporters of Israel’s settler fringe. They are showering the Israeli Right with money, tourists, and political lobbying….
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Culture Zen and the Art of the BuJu
I admit, I am a BuJu. I admit, I am a BuJu. Of course, I am not alone. Not only do a disproportionate number of American Buddhist teachers come from Jewish backgrounds, but many Jews practice both Judaism and Buddhism, and many more practice a Jewish spirituality influenced by Buddhist-derived meditation practices and values. The…
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The Schmooze Beat Poet Finally Found What He Was Looking For
How much of our yearning for transcendence is actually a yearning for love? The sublimation of desire takes many forms. Mystics longing for the divine, clearly, but more subtly, even those religious who aver no such emotional fire, but who nonetheless gain senses of connection from the observance of rituals. And it appears in poetry,…
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Opinion Can Catholic Church Thrive Without ‘Obsession’ on Gays and Abortion?
Like every other gay person I know, I rejoiced at the recent statement by Pope Francis I that, in his view, the Catholic Church has been overly “obsessed” with homosexuality, abortion and birth control. For one thing, I hope that the pope’s statement ends the massive crusade on the part of the United States Conference…
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Culture Bob Dylan Rescues His Worst Album
The line on Bob Dylan is that he never released his best material. Whether or not that’s entirely true, the best evidence is surely the period from 1967 to 1974 — from the motorcycle accident that ended Dylan’s second, electric incarnation, to the comeback hit “Blood on the Tracks.” During this period, Dylan and The…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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