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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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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Opinion How To Survive Your Trump-Supporting Relatives This Holiday Season
With the high holiday season upon us, many liberals – especially younger ones – are girding themselves for battle with their Trump-supporting relatives. “Uncle Irv,” I called these people last Spring, after a particularly irritating right-winger with whom I ‘celebrated’ the Seder for many years. Uncle Irv can be particularly challenging at this time of…
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Film & TV The Heretical Gnosticism Of Darren Aronofsky’s Most Daring Film
I chose to see Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, “mother!” without reading anything about it. All I could infer from its posters was that it would be scary, and all I could tell from Facebook was that my friends had strong opinions about it. Little did I know that I’d be watching two hours of mystical…
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Opinion 4 Reasons Republican Jews Are Still In Denial About Trump
In a milquetoast statement released on August 16, the Republican Jewish Coalition at last revealed itself to be living in complete delusion. The statement was released after Donald Trump first blamed “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville, and then issued an aide-written statement condemning racism, only to double down on his original position, stating…
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