Rabbi Jay Michaelson is a contributing columnist for the Forward and the writer of Both/And with Jay Michaelson. 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 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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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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