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 Forgetting the Mideast Conflict Is Easy in Israel — and That’s a Big Problem
The best place to forget the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Israel. In American Jewish circles, we talk about it all the time. But enjoying a café hafuch in southern Jerusalem’s Anglo-populated neighborhoods such as the German Colony or Katamon, it feels a world away. Ironic, isn’t it — since from those cafes, the conflict is actually…
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Opinion Mixed Blessing of Supreme Court’s Decisions on Gay Marriage and Voting Rights
What does it feel like to be gay and Jewish, after the Supreme Court affirmed same-sex marriage? It depends on what being gay and being Jewish means. If these identities are like teams (or tribes) to which one belongs, then this last week was a glorious time to be gay, and a basically irrelevant one…
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Opinion The Creeping Jewish Fundamentalism in Our Midst
American Jews are actively supporting a demographic trend that threatens the fabric of American Jewish life: the unchecked growth of Jewish fundamentalism. Call them what you will — ultra-Orthodox Jews, “fervently Orthodox” Jews, Haredim, black hats. They will soon become the majority of affiliated Jews in the metropolitan New York area, and the religious majority…
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Opinion Jewish Lessons of Murder in Greenwich Village
Mark Carson was a 32-year-old gay man in New York City, who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The place is one familiar to many New Yorkers: the busy corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street, in Greenwich Village. Just two blocks from the famous Stonewall Inn, Carson talked back…
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Opinion Confusing Israel’s Doves and Hawks
Doves and hawks. Idealists and realists. We’re used to these dichotomies in politics, and eventually most of us choose one side or the other. Trouble is, when it comes to Israel, the dichotomy is not so straightforward. Israel’s security hawks — the defense establishment, former generals and the former heads of the Shin Bet —…
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The Schmooze Was Justin Bieber Right About Anne Frank?
To paraphrase internet celebrity Chris Crocker, Leave Justin Alone. Let’s start with two things we don’t know. First, we don’t really know anything about Justin Bieber. All of our opinions about him are mediated by publicists, reporters, bloggers, and lots and lots of spin. Second, we don’t know that much about Anne Frank. We do…
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Opinion The Movement To Rebrand Discrimination as ‘Religious Freedom’
‘Religious liberty” is the new “family values.” That’s the conclusion of a new, exhaustive, 30,000-word report just released by the think-tank Political Research Associates and prepared by this writer. There is a covert, well-coordinated, heavily financed campaign to reframe questions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, as well as reproductive rights, into claims that…
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Culture Making Sense of the Holiday Season’s Onslaught of New Haggadahs
● The Bronfman Haggadah By Edgar Bronfman Illustrated by Jan Aronson Rizzoli, 128 pages, $29.95 ● The Artist’s Haggadah By Jane Kessler Petitjean Self-published, 48 pages, $20 ● The Haggadah App David Kraemer, et al Melcher Media, $4.99 on iTunes ● Hakol Baseder By Mitch Heifetz and Michael Toben Gefen Books, 110 pages, $7.95 (Haggadah),…
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