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 Jewish Leaders Can Keep the LGBT Debate Honest
A funny thing is happening in Jacksonville, Florida. In the wake of one of the most dishonest civil rights debates in recent memory — Houston’s cash-soaked, lie-filled controversy over whether to expand its human rights ordinance to protect LGBT people from discrimination — the city of Jacksonville has taken a different route. They’re talking honestly…
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Film & TV How ‘Star Wars’ Became America’s Talmud [SPOILER ALERT!]
Please don’t read this article if you haven’t seen Star Wars yet — it’s one big spoiler. But whether you have seen it, plan to see it, or couldn’t care less, in fact this article is about… you. “The Force Awakens” is a Talmudic film, struggling with what critic Harold Bloom has called the anxiety…
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Opinion Saying Kaddish Isn’t Always Profound — and Yet
I’ve resisted writing about my year of saying Kaddish for my mother. Writers more famous than I am have already produced overlong, overwritten tomes on the subject. Often, such writing carries a sense of lyrical, self-indulgent profundity. But my process hasn’t been profound. It’s been mundane, and pontification seems ridiculous. After 11 months, having taken…
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Opinion Why Do Activists Connect Israel to Campus Rape? Intersectionality 101
If you care about Israel’s status on college campuses, you need to know about intersectionality. Coined by black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, “intersectionality” refers to the way social identities and forms of oppression overlap and intersect. For Crenshaw, it was impossible to understand her black identity without also understanding her female identity, and…
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Opinion Israel Gobbling Up Africa? This Meme’s Anti-Semitic.
As I recently wrote in these pages, American Jews often cry wolf when it comes to anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment. However, even by a generous standard, this meme of Israel, Britain and France prepared to feast on Africa (which I’ve seen a few times circulated among my left-leaning friends on Facebook) is anti-Semitic. Three-quarters of…
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Opinion What Does Meditation Have To Do With Fighting ISIS Terror?
What does a meditation retreat have to do with the attacks in Paris? I asked myself this question as my co-teachers and I sat down to plan the details of the upcoming Elat Chayyim Meditation Retreat, a week of silence, meditation and davening that takes place around Christmas. It felt incongruous to mull over the…
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Opinion Are Jews Who Support Republicans Duped — Or Deliberately Blind?
Recent polls have indicated a slow trickle of American Jews joining the Republican Party. How extreme, insane and ignorant does the party have to become before these people wake up? Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that FiveThirtyEight and other “big data” sites are correct, and that neither Ben Carson nor Donald Trump will…
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Opinion Do Endless Denominational Turf Wars Even Matter Anymore?
A few small corners of the Jewish world are outraged at the October 30 resolution by the Rabbinical Council of America that its Orthodox members and institutions may not ordain women as rabbis, or hire women to serve as rabbis — and by the subsequent November 2 edict by the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel that “Open…
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