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 Ferguson Shows an Unjust System Cannot Produce Justice
“Set yourself judges and officers in all your gates,” says Deuteronomy 16:18, two verses before the Torah’s famous injunction, “justice, justice, shall you pursue.” Biblical commentators have observed that the two commandments are related: Because the judges are appointed by the Israelites themselves, they are responsible to the community, and can dispense justice fairly. The…
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Opinion I Admit It — I’m Binational-Curious
For at least a generation, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the oddest in the world. No one knew how to solve it, yet everyone knew what the solution was: two states, the 1967 lines with land swaps, a creative solution on Jerusalem. Within a couple of years, this consensus has begun to collapse. In short, the…
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Opinion Why Do We Keep Dissing Chabad’s Spirituality?
It’s been a year since the Pew Research Center released its “Portrait of Jewish Americans.” I haven’t counted how many words have been written about the report since that time, from the Forward’s e-book to endless handwringing by the OJC (Organized Jewish Community). But somewhere along the line, Pew definitely turned into Phew. As in,…
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Opinion Rabbis on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Those of us who knew, or thought we knew, Rabbi Barry Freundel — recently arrested for spying on women in the mikveh, with a mountain of evidence suggesting his guilt — are still in shock. As much as I disagreed with many of his halachic positions, I always thought he was one of the good…
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Opinion How ‘Klinghoffer’ Stereotypes Both Sides
“The Death of Klinghoffer” is among the most anti-Israel works of art I’ve experienced in recent years. And yet, it’s so intent on crafting a Cowboys-and-Indians story that it reduces its Palestinians to offensive, Orientalist caricatures. That’s right: This opera isn’t anti-Jewish. It’s anti-Palestinian. Far too much ink has already been spilled on the question…
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Opinion Why AIPAC Is Anti-Israel
American Jews who support Israel have been fighting one another in an asymmetrical way: Hawks routinely accuse doves of being anti-Israel, but doves do not accuse the hawks. I’m not sure how this pattern has come about — maybe it just feels ironic for pro-peace people to pick a fight — but it needs to…
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Culture Live-Blogging The Rapture and the Demise of Nicolas Cage
Why am I here? The question arises on many levels. On the surface, clearly, I’m here to review “Left Behind,” based on the second-best-selling series of books of all time (“Harry Potter” is the first). In theory, LB should be the biggest of a run of terrible Christian movies, including “Heaven is for Real” and…
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Opinion Same-Sex Marriage Wins at SCOTUS
The Supreme Court decision not to hear any of the seven pending cases on state same-sex marriage bans is being hailed as a watershed moment for LGBT equality. While some of these claims are overly enthusiastic — this is only a decision not to decide, and the Court will surely take up the issue at…
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FIRST PERSON As a rabbi, he helped others mourn. So why wouldn’t his daughter say kaddish for him?
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Film & TV Why movies are tackling a real pain: memory and Holocaust tourism
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Yiddish טשיקאַווער ראָמאַן וועגן פֿרוי וואָס זוכט אַ גײַסטיקע היים אין ירושלים — דורך ייִדישUnique novel about woman who seeks a spiritual home in Jerusalem — through Yiddish
די העלדין פֿון „דאָ איז נאָך אַלץ דאָ“ טראָגט אױף זיך דעם לאַסט פֿון איר באָבעס חורבן־טראַװמע.
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Fast Forward Many Israelis are celebrating Trump’s win, seeing him as more likely to back their country
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Fast Forward Eugene Vindman, whose Jewish immigrant story played a role in Trump’s impeachment, elected to Congress
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