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 Have We Reached the End of Traditional Religion?
Maybe the Christian Right is right. For almost 40 years now, they’ve been warning us that we’ve entered the wilderness, that traditional religion is being eroded. Did 2013 prove them right? Item One: the Rise of the Nones. This phenomenon — nearly 20% of Americans listing “none” as their religious affiliation — was first documented…
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Opinion Obamacare ‘Pajama Boy’ Controversy Wrapped in Anti-Semitism
Surely the silliest kerfluffle of a political year that contained much silliness was the recent conservative hand-wringing over “Pajama Boy.” Pajama Boy, you will be forgiven for not knowing, was the star of a recent ad — one among many — by “Organizing for Action” (formerly Obama for America) designed to get people to register…
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Opinion Holiday Season Underlines Shifts in Judaism as Self-Definition Fades
‘Tis the season once again — the season of the December Dilemma. In its original form, the alliterative allusion is to the challenge of raising Jewish kids in a non-Jewish society. Everyone loves Christmas, right? So how come we don’t celebrate it? But the December Dilemma is dated. A majority of non-Orthodox Jewish marriages are…
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Opinion How Should We Feel About the Pew Study of #JewishAmerica?
A survey of the state of American Jewry conducted by the venerable Pew Research Center dropped like a bomb in October. The numbers seemed to augur a dramatic change in American Jewish life, with intermarriage increasing, religious observance by the non-Orthodox decreasing, and a general sense that Jewish identity was fading. Commentary and analysis proliferated,…
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Culture Adam Levine Is Sexy and Jewish. So What?
Adam Levine, front man of Maroon 5, host of “The Voice,” he of the moves like Mick Jagger, was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive this year. Is this good for the Jews? Who’s asking? For single Jewish men looking to get a date, this is very good news. Jewish men have been in a bit…
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Opinion Is the Israel of Today Becoming 1980s South Africa?
Today’s college students were not yet born when Nelson Mandela, F.W. De Klerk, Yasser Arafat, and Yitzhak Rabin shared Time’s “Man of the Year” award in 1990. As the world mourns Mandela and celebrates his legacy, it is worth looking back at that moment — and looking toward the future that it might signify. There…
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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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