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 Behind a Veil of Words
Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Its Philosophical Implications By Moshe Halbertal Translated by Jackie Feldman Princeton University Press, 212 pages, $29.95. A few years ago I was sitting on an airplane, and a woman next to me was reading “The Da Vinci Code.” At some point we got to talking, and I…
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Opinion Getting Serious About Love
In a recent sermon, up-and-coming rabbi David Ingber complained, “You never hear about love in Jewish newspapers.” Part of the reason for this is, of course, that love is rarely newsworthy; crisis is just better press. But it is true, in the Jewish world, that religiously, intellectually and culturally, love isn’t serious. Some of this…
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Culture Peoplehood: There’s No There There
“We’re here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” — Kurt Vonnegut In the old days, presumably, it was simple: All Jews belonged to klal yisrael, largely because they didn’t have any choice, and we all knew that we were in this thing together. Some were pious, some quite wicked; some…
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Culture The Virtues of the Unaffiliated
It’s all about the unaffiliated. Ask anyone who runs a Jewish not-for-profit, and she’ll tell you: Success is measured in terms of how many “unaffiliated” Jews you get to “affiliate” — whether with Jewishness, Judaism or, at the very least, the latest program, trend or synagogue-outreach initiative. Organizations that don’t focus on the unaffiliated have…
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News Anti-Folk Hits The Right Note: Kimya Dawson Breaks Through With ‘Juno’
Kimya Dawson is the top-selling artist in America! I admit I didn’t see it coming. The last band I knew before it was famous (you know… when it was really cool) was the White Stripes, which my friend Adam saw perform on his college campus. I’d forgotten what this feels like — this sense that…
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Culture The Path Of the Just: Is Mussar the ‘New Kabbalah’?
Everyday Holiness: The Jewish Spiritual Path of Mussar By Alan Morinis Trumpeter, 335 pages, $24.95 A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar By Ira Stone Aviv Press, 320 pages, $17.95. How do you become a better person? A simple question, it would seem, but there are no easy answers — and no agreement as…
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Culture People Of the Chapbook: Jewish Poets as Jewish Teachers
Not many people know it, but Jewish poetry is alive and well. The neglect is surprising, really, since we are, after all, the People of the Book, and we allegedly cherish our poets, from the ancients to Amichai. But perhaps it’s not so surprising, given our contemporary culture, which (poets laureate notwithstanding) relegates poetry to…
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Culture Thinking Green: It’s Not Just a Virtue — It’s Your Jewish Duty
The rhetoric of Jewish environmentalism has long been kind and gentle. Like much of American environmentalist talk, it accentuates the positive: what we can do, how you can help. This is Left-Wing Activism 101: Fight despair, and don’t alienate anyone. And it’s abetted, in both secular and Jewish contexts, by the propensity of tree-hugging liberals…
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