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 How the pandemic freed me from the neurosis-inducing rules of Passover
For my doctoral dissertation, I wrote on a much-misunderstood 18th century heretic named Jacob Frank. Yet I hadn’t really considered the relevance of Frank’s antinomianism – the belief that transgressing the law is a religious or ethical duty – to my own life. Until this year. Though Frank is often associated with transgressive sexuality and…
-
Culture Your comprehensive guide to choosing a new haggadah this year
Well, here we are again, still in Egypt. Not really — vaccinations are proceeding apace, and there are good reasons to be hopeful that next year’s Seder will be, if not in Jerusalem, then at least back at Bubbe’s place. We may not be across the Red Sea yet, but we have smeared plenty of…
-
Culture Life, death, heartbreak, disillusionment — Dylan’s first album as an old man
Bob Dylan’s Grammy-award-winning comeback album, 1997’s “Time Out of Mind,” is a glorious record of death and rebirth. Death insofar as the album’s songs frequently have themes of mortality and aging (“I been all around the world, boys / Now I’m trying to get to heaven before they close the door”)(“It’s not dark yet, but…
-
Culture How to choose a haggadah in the time of coronavirus
One must reach to the darkest chapters of Jewish history to think of a Passover as dark as this one. Across the world, families are in lockdown, living in fear or grief, and coping with profound uncertainty about how long this plague will last. In such a moment, the Passover Seder may or may not…
-
Culture The Best New Haggadot And The Best Of All Time
I’ve been tracking the release of new haggadot for the Forward for eleven years now. I’ve reviewed the good, the bad, the overproduced, the underappreciated. (Some of my all-time favorites are listed at the end.) And over the years, it’s been remarkable to observe how the production of haggadot each year reflects the continued vitality…
-
Culture Remembering Bernie Glassman — A Zen Mensch
Bernie Glassman, one of the most important American Buddhist teachers, died Sunday November 4 at the age of 79. His life, and his integration of Judaism and Buddhism, now stands as a perfect, imperfect monument to the pursuit of spirituality and social justice. Perhaps fittingly, Glassman passed away just as one of the organizations he…
-
Culture Why Han Solo is the most goyish ‘Star Wars’ hero
In Lenny Bruce’s terms, Han Solo always struck me as the most goyish of the “Star Wars” heroes. And in the new film “Solo,” he seems even more so. Recall (or, for a younger generation, come and learn) that for the outlaw comedian Lenny Bruce, Jewishness was a matter of sensibility more than religion or…
-
Theater ‘Harry Potter And The Cursed Child’ Is Jewish — And Dark
The amazing, bar-raising production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is unlike anything I’ve seen on Broadway. The $63 million budget, the total renovation of the Lyric Theater into a theme-park-like immersive Potterworld experience, the staging, the two-part/five-hour length (for a mass-market play) – watching it felt like seeing the opening of “Cats” or…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jerusalem Post editor Zvika Klein, arrested in ‘Qatar-gate,’ says he’s being unfairly prosecuted for his reporting
-
Fast Forward Trump fires national security officials, reportedly at urging of Laura Loomer, far-right Jewish ‘Islamophobe’
-
Fast Forward Display honoring Jewish women graduates of naval academy removed ahead of Hegseth visit
-
Yiddish טשיקאַוועסן: מיידעלע געפֿינט 3,800־יאָריקע קמיע לעבן בית־שמש, ישׂראלTIDBITS: Little girl finds 3,800-year old amulet near Beit Shemesh, Israel
אַן עקספּערט פֿון פֿאַרצײַטיקע קמיעות האָט באַשטעטיקט אַז די קמיע איז געלעגן אויפֿן אָרט פֿונעם אַמאָליקן לאַנד כּנען.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
