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 Three Reasons Why the Electoral College Must Reject Trump
A month ago, the Electoral College blocking Donald Trump was a Democratic pipe dream. Now, the electors who will convene across the country on December 19 have a sacred duty to withhold their votes from Trump, and three constitutional reasons to do so. Such an action would be unprecedented, and our shared religious, ethical and…
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Opinion Sorry, Jews. Steve Bannon Is Not an Anti-Semite, and This Story Is Not About Us.
We’ve got Steve Bannon wrong. Among American Jewish progressives, the consensus is that Bannon, Donald Trump’s “strategic adviser,” is anti-Semitic. The website he managed, Breitbart.com, called itself “the platform for the alt-right,” and the “alt-right” contains within it some extreme anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and so forth. And besides, according to court documents, Bannon didn’t want his…
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Letters More Shortsightedness From Orthodox Groups on Betsy DeVos
Rabbi Nathan Diament’s response to my column about Betsy DeVos perfectly reflects the short-sightedness of the Orthodox Union’s approach to this issue. The column in question was roughly 1,200 words long. Only 64 of those words addressed Orthodox organizations. Yet from Rabbi Diament’s response, you’d think the whole piece was an attack on them. In…
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Opinion Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education? That’s a Tragedy for All American Jews.
For generations of American Jews, public education has been the gateway to American life. It was certainly true for my parents, the children of immigrants; public school taught them not just facts and figures, but alao how to be American — and how to be proud of being American. Which is why the nomination of…
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Opinion To Survive Trump, All Progressives Need To Become Sabras
Before Sabra was a brand of hummus, it was a nickname for Israelis, who were said to be like the Sabra cactus: tough outside, but tender inside. In the age of Donald Trump, all progressives must learn to be Sabras. We, like a generation of Israelis who lived with perpetual war, must learn to be…
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Opinion They Went Low With Donald Trump and Steve Bannon — We Should Go Lower
“When they go low, we go high,” said Michelle Obama. Look how well that turned out. For the next four years, progressives must take a lesson from conservatives: When they go low, we must go lower, fiercer, harder, smarter. We must fight unrelentingly to save the country (and planet) we once knew. The same zeal,…
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Opinion How Did Donald Trump Happen?
How could this happen? What do I tell my kids? Fair questions. It’s fair to feel anything right now, especially fear. But, if it helps, consider that the Trump victory isn’t entirely surprising. America has changed very quickly in the last 20 years or so. We’ve become much more multicultural — and have officially said…
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Opinion Your Ambivalence Toward Hillary Clinton Says More About You Than Her
Hillary Clinton voters, it’s time to switch teams. I don’t mean to Team Bernie or, God forbid, Team Trump. I mean that it’s time to take a good hard look at the reasons many of us are still on Team Reluctant, Team Lesser of Two Evils, or Team This Has Been a Nasty Election All…
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