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 An Act of LGBT Censorship in Seattle
Last year, Israeli adult film star and newly-minted right wing activist Michael Lucas used his financial clout to bar an anti-Israel group from meeting at New York’s LGBT Center. I was one of many who protested: LGBT community centers are meant for the entire community, including groups with whom we may disagree. But in case…
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Life Don’t Let Preference Veto Justice
This is the third entry in an ongoing series exploring Jewish feminism. I want to answer the question of “what Jewish feminism means to me” in two ways: First, about how I learn from it both substantively; and second, on a meta level, in terms of how all of us enrich the Jewish conversation through…
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Opinion You Can’t Pray the Gay Away
‘Reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians, which attempts to “change” sexual orientation and is neither reparative nor therapy, is the last gasp of bad theology. It exists to solve a theological crisis. On the one hand, Jews are told that God loves us and that “it is not good… to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) On…
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Culture Jewish Roots of the New Testament
‘It is evil for Christians to try to convert Jews with this dreck. Why don’t you people leave us in peace?” So wrote one Amazon reviewer of the new “Jewish Annotated New Testament” (Oxford University Press, 2011), a magisterial volume of Jewish commentaries, essays and scholarly notes on the second half of the Christian Bible….
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Opinion Alleged Child Molesting Pastor Wrapped in Torah Scrolls
Apparently oblivious to how offensive this would be to any non-messianic Jew, Atlanta pastor Eddie Long — who privately settled lawsuits with several men who had alleged he molested them as boys, and whose wife recently divorced him for the same reason — allowed himself to be wrapped in a Torah scroll by messianic ‘Jew’…
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Culture Conservatives Have Jewish Values, Too
Jewish conservatives continue to spend significant amounts of effort and money to swing American and Israeli politics to the far right. Most visible is gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson, whose funding of Israeli media affected the 2009 Israeli election and who is now spending a fortune to equate American “support for Israel” with support for Israel’s…
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Culture Fighting Back Against Fundamentalism
How many wake-up calls do we need? The spate of communal misogyny in Israel and the United States, carried out under the pretext of a religious mandate, yet unjustified even by ultra-Orthodox interpretations of Halacha; Haredi America’s wall of silence about sexual abuse; and a variety of other scandals in the Haredi world, such as…
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Culture Why Does the Heckler Get a Veto?
Jewish Book Month has just ended, and I’ve had a wonderful time crisscrossing the country on my book tour. At almost every event, there are people in the audience with tears in their eyes, and parents who come up to tell me how the book I’ve written is enabling them to be closer to their…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Fast Forward Meet Lev Kreitman, who brought down Tel Aviv shooter and survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
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Culture How my odious cousin Roy Cohn was responsible for creating Donald Trump — and me
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Fast Forward Nova survivor reveals she witnessed rape on Oct. 7 at Tel Aviv memorial ceremony interrupted by rocket sirens
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Fast Forward In NYC, Jews gather together — and apart — for prayer and protest to mark one year since Oct. 7
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Fast Forward Trump visits gravesite of Lubavitcher Rebbe to mark Oct. 7 anniversary
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