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 The Very Jewish Reasons Why Gay Men Loved Joan Rivers
Getty Images Can we talk? Gay men have always loved our outsized female heroes, and Joan Rivers was right up there with the best of them. It’s no coincidence that a disproportionate number of these divas are Jewish (Rivers, Barbra Streisand) even though many (Judy Garland, Madonna) are not. In fact, gay men love strong…
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Opinion What Judaism Can Learn From Burning Man
And now, three items from the world of celebrity — two of which you’ve probably heard about, one which you likely have not. First, yet another arrest of former cherub Justin Bieber, this time for “dangerous driving” and assault. Let’s not rush to judge the Biebs here — he was trying to elude paparazzi, who…
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Opinion How Do We Avenge Steven Sotloff’s Death?
Shiite Muslim fighters take part in a last combat training before joining the government forces to fight Islamic State jihadists / Getty Images And so another beheading of another American journalist — this time “one of us,” as today’s Forward editorial has reminded us. “One of us” meaning an American Jew, and one whose family…
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Opinion Jewish Emphasis on Life Makes Death Rituals a Gift to World
It’s sometimes said that religion originated out of the fear of death. We all face the abyss, and we all grieve when our loved ones pass away. From this utter meaninglessness, the theory goes, myths of meaning arise. A review of Biblical literature, however, calls this theory into question. Unlike many indigenous and shamanic traditions,…
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Opinion Why Jews Should Care About Ferguson
In many ways, it has always been like this. As long as there has been an American republic, there have been white men in power oppressing everyone else. And more particularly, (disproportionately) white soldiers and cops committing acts of violence against (disproportionately) people of color. Not much new here. And yet, it has never been…
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Opinion ‘Unhappy Happiness,’ Or What Rabbi Nachman And Pharell Have in Common
Presaging the hit song of Summer 2014, Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav famously taught, “It is a great mitzvah to be happy always.” In fact, Rabbi Nachman further observed, a century ahead of his time, sadness can lead to illness; poetically, he explained that this was because the body needs ten different kinds of music to…
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Opinion Getting Serious About the Mystery
Robert Frost once wrote, “We dance round in a ring and suppose. But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.” I’d like this to be a Jewish credo. We have the first part right anyway: Jews do a lot of dancing round in rings, on holidays, at weddings. We also do a lot of…
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Opinion What ‘Dead Poets Society’ Taught Me About Living Deliberately
Robin Williams was not John Keating, the teacher he portrayed in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society. Keating was a character, made richer by Williams’ own improvisatory genius, but a character nonetheless. Williams, as we now all know, was all too human. Yet their fates, for me, are intertwined. Keating is a preacher of sensitivity….
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