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 Eric Cantor Killed By Monster He Helped Create
Jewish Republican Eric Cantor campaigning in 2012 / Nathan Guttman Nineteen months ago, on the eve of the 2012 elections, I asked the following question in these pages about Tea Party Conservatives and neo-conservatives like Eric Cantor: “Who’s using whom?” That question may never be answered. But like Dr. Frankenstein, Rep. Cantor has just been…
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Opinion Memo to Nathan Cummings Foundation: Don’t Abandon the Jews!
The decision by the Nathan Cummings Foundation to fire its well-known CEO, Simon Greer, sent shockwaves throughout the Jewish nonprofit world. Greer is a bit of a celebrity in his own right, and had been shepherding the NCF’s strategic realignment. At first, some speculated that the NCF board was rethinking that change in strategy, which…
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Opinion Include Me Out of This Jewish Community
Let me start with gratitude. As a gay Jewish man, I am profoundly humbled by the strides the Jewish community has taken over the last several years. Among almost all denominations, in all geographical areas, Jewish institutions have become more inclusive of LGBT people, and, I think, have been enriched as a result. But “inclusion”…
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Culture 233 Reasons Why Bob Dylan Is Right To Detest His Fans
The Dylanologists: Adventures in the Land of Bob By David Kinney Simon & Schuster, 256 pages, $25 ‘The Dylanologists” is a truly maddening book. Ostensibly, it is the story of the obsessive, sometimes paranoid fans who pore over every Bob Dylan lyric and concert, who worship, scrutinize, stalk, analyze and clearly annoy the man himself….
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Culture Why Do Jews Meditate? It’s All in the Worrying!
Dan Harris already had a lot going for him: He’s co-anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline” and “Good Morning America,” and a respected journalist. Now he’s also a best-selling author, with his recent memoir-cum-report on meditation, “10% Happier.” The book, subtitled “How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, And…
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Opinion I Am 1 Billionth ‘Anti-Semite’
Why is anyone taking the Anti-Defamation League’s survey on global anti-Semitism seriously? Like catnip to a calico tabby, the ADL’s recent “findings” that one-quarter of the world is anti-Semitic has indeed thrown much of the Jewish press into a feeding frenzy. As if confirming what some — read, conservative — Jews have been telling us…
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Opinion Embracing the Irrationality of Circumcision and Kashrut
Judaism has long had an uncomfortable relationship with rationality. On the one hand, our talmudic sages, classically influenced philosophers, and secular scientists and doctors have all taken rational reasoning to great, sometimes dizzying heights. Ours is a tradition of law, education and logic. Yet on the other hand, many aspects of Judaism – like most…
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Culture Reb Zalman’s December Song
● The December Project By Sara Davidson HarperCollins Publishers, 208 pages, $25.99 Founded in the aftermath of the Sabbatean heresy, early Hasidism was a paragon of paradox. Its early 19th-century adherents, particularly those of the philosophically rigorous movement Chabad, were uniters of opposites — heaven and earth, being and nothingness, concealment and revelation. The greatest…
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