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 Learning To Embrace the Hybrid Jew
One of last month’s most-read articles on forward.com was an installment of the Seesaw, the Forward’s group advice column on multi-faith families, entitled “I Don’t Want to Be Jewish Anymore.” It showed how little we in the Jewishly-engaged world (by definition, that’s you) understand about the other 70%. Let’s start with the title, presumably written…
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Opinion How Could We Have Trusted Rabbi Barry Freundel?
Now that Rabbi Barry Freundel has pleaded guilty to peeping at 52 women while they went to the mikveh — prosecutors say he spied on 100 more women, but outside the statute of limitations — we finally can take off the qualifiers and accept that he is guilty. And that means we can begin some…
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Opinion What Will Prevent Another Copenhagen?
Je Suis Copenhagen meme via Twitter The worst part of this weekend’s horrifying terrorist attack in Copenhagen is, of course, that it happened at all, and resulted in the deaths of a young man guarding a synagogue and a film director attending a free-speech event. The second-worst part is that there is no reason it…
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Culture How Hasidism Bridges Boundary Between Christianity and Judaism
Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism By Shaul Magid Stanford University Press, 288 pages, $65 In some ways, the boundary between Judaism and Christianity is a boundary about boundaries — specifically, what separates humanity from God, and whether it is ever possible to bridge the gap. Christianity, of course, has among…
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Opinion Why Megachurch Concept of Sin Is So Dangerous
Last week, I waxed rhapsodic about what the Jewish community could learn from megachurches. As communal institutions, they are far more spiritually-focused, inspiring, diverse, well-managed, and accessible than all but the best synagogues. They meet a demonstrated, expressed need for spiritual meaning and connection, and they deliver the goods in a carefully thought out way….
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Opinion It’s Time for the Jewish Megachurch
Lately, I’ve been speaking at synagogues around the country about emerging trends in 21st century Judaism. I often start with the well-worn joke about a Jewish castaway rescued on a desert island. His rescuers note he’d built not one but two synagogues — why, they asked. “Well,” he replied, “one is the synagogue I go…
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Opinion How To Respond to Bloody Paris Terror? With Reason — and Rage
This is a week for rage and grief. First, radical Islamist gunmen assassinated 10 journalists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. And as if that were not horrific enough, a second attack at a kosher grocery store, with four people dead. Apparently, simply being Jewish is now as offensive as drawing a cartoon –…
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Culture Live-Blogging Jewishly in a Weird Evangelical Christian World
The Jewish community has long fretted over the so-called “December Dilemma,” in which Jewish kids are teased for not having Christmas trees and gifts from Santa. To paraphrase Kyle from “South Park,” it’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas, especially in a Christian-dominated society. Which is why you may be surprised to learn that…
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Film & TV Mikey Madison is Jewish — is ‘Anora’?
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Opinion Trump’s treasury secretary is about to make a catastrophically bad move on Israel
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Books Two middle-aged women defied the Nazis. One ‘wrote’ a book that betrayed the other.
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Fast Forward What does the election of Mark Carney mean for Canadian Jews and Israel?
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