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 In Defense of the Western Wall
This week, we observe the 17th of Tammuz, beginning the season that commemorates the destruction of the Temple and culminates on the Ninth of Av, which this year will be observed August 10. For many of us, however, the Temple and its remaining Western Wall (the kotel) often evoke more ambivalence than they do wistful…
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Culture Kabbalah: Ten Years After Madonna
Kabbalah is so… last decade. I still remember the flush of excitement, confusion, appreciation and concern that I felt in 1998 when I first read that Madonna was going to The Kabbalah Centre, and that her new tour design featured kabbalistic imagery. Then came Demi and Ashton and Britney and Roseanne, and a whole decade…
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News Where the Light Gets In
Here is the essence of Jewish outdoor education, based on the five summers I spent teaching it at camp: You’re sure you can’t do it, and then you do it. One of the most memorable afternoons I ever spent was at the bottom of a huge rock face in rural Connecticut, coaching a smart, skinny…
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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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