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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Culture In Pursuing Bob Dylan for Hate Speech, Croatian Group Denies Holocaust
Bob Dylan uttered hate speech?! Not so fast. In fact, it’s his accusers are engaged in hate speech: specifically, denying the Holocaust. The blogosphere was abuzz with the news Tuesday that Dylan was being investigated by French authorities for comments he’d made in a Rolling Stone magazine interview, published in English in September, 2012, and…
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Opinion Does the Iran Deal Force Americans Jews To Choose Between Dual Loyalties?
Does anyone else find it strange that synagogues have American and Israeli flags on the bimah? I’m not referring, here, to the question of whether political symbols belong in a sanctuary — although that is certainly debatable. I mean: Doesn’t it look a bit like dual loyalty? As if we pledge allegiance to two flags,…
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Opinion Jewish Star on Russian Gay Bashing Victim
The latest video from the Russian Neo-Nazi group “Occupy Pedophilia” has hit the Russian social media site, VK.com. The video follows the same format of the gay-bashing torture videos that the group is (in-)famous for: a bully taunts, assaults and humiliates a gay man lured by a fake personal ad. Only this time, the victim…
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Opinion Bar Mitzvah Boy Talks Gay Marriage
At my bar mitzvah, many moons ago, I took the daring step to talk about… I can’t remember. Like most Bar and Bat Mitzvah kids, my remarks were pretty perfunctory. But not those of Duncan McAlpine Sennett. In a talk now trending on YouTube, Duncan starts out in straightforward fashion, talking about his Torah portion….
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Opinion On Thanksgiving, Confronting Our Country’s Bitter Past of Slavery
“A person is obligated to see himself as if he were leaving Egypt.” This instruction from the Talmud may not seem timely at the moment, as American Jews prepare to celebrate the conjoined holidays of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving rather than Passover. But thanks to the visceral, devastating film “12 Years a Slave,” we have a…
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Culture Seeking Harmony and Finding Transcendence at The Cloisters
Janet Cardiff’s “The Forty Part Motet” is a transcendent work of art. Consisting of forty speakers arranged in an oval, each playing the separately recorded voice of a member of a choir, it envelops the listener in a sea of sound. And now, installed (until December 8) in a reconstructed 12th century church at The…
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Opinion Answer This Question: Why Be Jewish?
Let’s call it a Pew-haha, these last few weeks of hand wringing, debate, and general brouhaha about the recent Pew survey on American Judaism. “Of making books there is no end,” Ecclesiastes reminds us. Op-eds, too. Now that the dust is settling, perhaps it’s worth asking a seemingly obvious question: Who cares? And more importantly,…
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Opinion George W. Bush Embraces Jews for Jesus
Who’s surprised that former President George W. Bush is speaking at the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute benefit? Not anyone who understands Christian Zionism, ‘Jews for Jesus,’ and the many links between them. Christian Zionists are now the leading supporters of Israel’s settler fringe. They are showering the Israeli Right with money, tourists, and political lobbying….
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Far-right politician who praised Nazi collaborators shocks with top finish in Romanian presidential election
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News For Israelis still displaced from their homes, reclaiming the kitchen can be an act of hope
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Yiddish בער קאָטלערמאַן געווינט די י. י. סיגאַל פּרעמיע פֿאַר זײַן בוך דערציילונגען „סאַמאָיעד“Ber Kotlerman wins J. I Segal award for his collection of stories, ‘Samoyed’
די העלדן אין דער זאַמלונג זענען אוקראַיִנער ייִדן וואָס לײַדן פֿון אַ שווער לעבן אָבער בלײַבן פֿאָרט לײַטיש.
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Film & TV Hermann Goering’s personal art dealer plundered the world for decades; his victims’ descendants are still seeking justice
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