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 How To Listen to Beyonce When You’re a White American Jew
Some of the most compelling popular art of the past year has come not only from an African-American perspective, but also from a relatively confrontational one — in the best sense. I’m thinking here of Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly,” Ta-Nehisi Coates’s masterful “Between the World and Me,” Beyonce’s “Formation” video, and now the…
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Music A Jewish Tribute to Prince, Holy Unifier of Spirit and Sex
We get older when those we love — first parents, then peers and friends — pass away. Death becomes real, not an abstraction. Not only can it happen anytime; it does happen anytime. I think that’s true when celebrities pass also. This year, Prince and David Bowie; not long ago, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston….
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Opinion I’m Seeking Freedom From the Organized Jewish Community This Passover
Preparing this column, I thought of many “profound” things to say about Passover. I’m a rabbi, after all, as well as an ex-lawyer, writer, speaker, teacher — I know how to gab. And the holiday is a goldmine of inspiration: themes of liberation, kinesthetic rituals, DIY Jewish observances, fascinating texts and histories. But everything I…
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Culture Why This Is An Off Year for New Haggadot — and That’s Not a Bad Thing
Just a few years ago, my annual review of new Haggadahs marveled at the novelty of a Haggadah app, a DIY Haggadah website, and other new-media ways in which 21st century Jews were remixing this 3rd century hodgepodge of texts. Now, as with new media and old media in general, the novelties have taken over….
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Opinion Does Donald Trump Respect Women More Than Pro-Lifers Do?
Donald Trump’s candidacy has revealed many things, but I don’t think anyone expected it to cast a harsh light on the misogyny of the pro-life movement. Interestingly, the pro-lifers’ conundrum has a Jewish precedent. The latest controversy (of how many? I’ve lost count) started at the March 30 Republican Town Hall, in which Trump, clearly…
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Opinion In Response to North Carolina’s Law, a Jewish Case for Intersectionality
North Carolina has once again made reactionary history, this time rolling back anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people by means of a complete fabrication: that transgender women are, in fact, male sexual predators. There is not a shred of data to support this conclusion — none. On the contrary, by forcing transgender men to shower, urinate…
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Opinion Trump Is Not Hitler and He’s Not Haman — He’s Ahasuerus
With Purim around the corner, it occurs to me that many people see Donald Trump as Haman, the genocidal villain of the Purim story. That’s not quite right: He’s Ahasuerus, a different kind of danger, and one that’s worth contemplating today. In case you need a refresher, Ahasuerus, in the Book of Esther, is the…
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Opinion Meet the Evangelical Christians Behind Ted Cruz — They’re Super Jewy
Of the remaining Republican presidential hopefuls, Ted Cruz has emerged as the candidate of the Christian right. Yet he is also the candidate of the 1%, with just four people donating over $31 million to his campaign: eccentric billionaire Robert Mercer, longtime friend Toby Neugebauer, and two brothers, Farris and Dan Wilks. The Wilks brothers,…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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