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 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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Culture Every Haggadah You Need For Passover This Year (And Some You Might Not)
Passover reflects America. Over the last two decades, two trends have defined American religious life: disaffiliation and spiritual searching. More Americans than ever are leaving the religious denominations of their childhood: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish communities alike. Each tradition, in turn, is becoming smaller, more traditional, and more conservative (except Catholics, due to the influx…
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Opinion The NRA Has An Anti-Semitism Problem
Purim is right around the corner. It’s the holiday in which we commemorate a crazy, long-ago time when wealthy Jews were targeted by anti-Semites, and a vain, know-nothing ruler did nothing to stop it. Sorry, that’s this past week. First, of course, came the horrific mass-murder of 17 people, 14 of them students and five…
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Opinion Mike Pence’s Love Of Israel Is Dangerous For Jews
Vice President Mike Pence may have just become the first Christian visitor to Israel not to set foot inside a church. Palestinian Christians boycotted his visit this week, still furious over the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, so Pence never saw Bethlehem, or Nazareth, or the Holy Sepulchre. Instead, like a…
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Life Be ‘Naughty’! Shop At Stores That Don’t Only Embrace Christmas.
As you’re doing that last-minute Hanukkah shopping, the Liberty Counsel, a relatively small Christian Right organization best known for defending Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, has a few ideas for you. For several years the Liberty Counsel has prepared a “Naughty or Nice” list of retailers who celebrate the “holidays” in general (naughty) and those who…
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