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
-
Culture ‘Why Is Your Haggadah Different From Others?’
Reporting on the new Haggadot of the year is among my favorite roles here at the Forward. Each year, a new trove appears. And each year, we learn something new about the American Jewish experience. It’s no surprise, then, that the most exciting new Haggadah of the year isn’t a book at all, but an…
-
Culture Not for the Sake of Heaven
Passover is coming, and with it, the season of questions. We Jews have long prided ourselves on asking good questions — even more than on providing adequate answers. We prize debates that go on forever. And, of course, we answer questions with still more questions. Inquiry, discourse, communication: These are some of the core values…
-
Culture Gay and Orthodox: And Cleaving Strongly to Both
In January, I went to a shabbaton with 140 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Orthodox Jews. Yes, Virginia, there are gay Orthodox Jews. There always have been. And while I have been working in the LGBT Jewish community for many years, I saw more courage, endurance and strength that weekend than I ever have before….
-
Culture The Problem of Spiritual Experience
I was at a Seder a few years ago, and told my host I’d just been on a six-week silent meditation retreat. Before I could finish my sentence, he announced, “You’re deluding yourself.” A bit quick to judge, perhaps, but if you ask most skeptics, I think they’d say the same thing about spiritual experiences….
-
Culture Don’t Trust Your Gut
One of the functions of religion, we are told, is to provide comfort in an uncomfortable world. We all know we will die, but religion comforts us with tales of the afterlife. We all know that life is unpredictable, but religion comforts us with stories of a guiding light, ordering the universe. In this way,…
-
Culture Rethinking Egalitarianism
Recently I met up with a Jewish academic from New York who had relocated to a midsize Jewish community in the South. In New York, he and his family had attended B’nai Jeshurun, the huge, well-known liberal congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But in his new home, the options were less attractive: He described…
-
Culture More Than Words
If Passover is the holiday of questions and answers, Yom Kippur is often the holiday of confusion and befuddlement. Why? On Passover, symbols rich in texture and history are explicitly explained within the Seder ritual; indeed, explaining is part of the point. Yet on Yom Kippur, ostensibly the holiest of days, suddenly we’re left to…
-
Opinion Gay Marriage and ‘Religious Freedom’
The historic decision striking down California’s Proposition 8 affirms what many of us in the movement for GLBT equality have known all along: The fight over gay marriage is really a battle about whether we want religion to dictate our laws. Take away all the pseudo-sociology, the unsubstantiated (and demonstrably false) claims about how children…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News Who was Horst Wessel, and why are people comparing Charlie Kirk to him?
- 2
Culture Charlie Kirk kept a ‘Jewish Sabbath.’ What did he mean by that?
- 3
Film & TV Robert Redford’s legacy is surprisingly Jewish
- 4
Antisemitism Decoded Israel is being blamed for Charlie Kirk’s death. Here’s what that conspiracy theory says about the far right’s divide
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture This Israeli photographer’s work is all about ‘subverting masculinity’
-
Opinion The terrifying Nazi precedent for Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension — and the reasons to stay hopeful
-
Fast Forward Freed hostage Edan Alexander says he’s returning to the IDF next month
-
Yiddish World How a Yiddish acting troupe fooled the Tsarist government
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
