Jay Michaelson

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Religion is Actually Spirituality

By Jay Michaelson

Religion vs. spirituality. We hear the opposition all the time. “I’m not religious, I’m spiritual,” increasing numbers of Americans say every year. Conversely, many Jews insist that they follow Halacha, Jewish law, not out of any subjective spiritual motive, but because it is commanded by God.Read More


Love Is Not Blindness

By Jay Michaelson

Since the publication of “How I’m Losing My Love for Israel,” a personal essay describing my fatigue as a liberal Zionist, the most disturbing responses have not been the vitriolic e-mails or online comments, nor the thoughtful and well-reasoned replies from the likes of Daniel Gordis and Jonathan Sarna. Rather, I have been most troubled by the statements of many Jewish professionals — rabbis, federation leaders, nonprofit directors — who have told me, “Thank you for saying what I cannot.”Read More


How I’m Losing My Love For Israel

By Jay Michaelson

To paraphrase a recent Jewish organizational tagline, I’ve “hugged and wrestled with Israel” for 20 years now. At first, it was all embrace: Zionist songs and culture nourished me like mother’s milk, and on my first trip to Israel I kissed the tarmac at Ben Gurion, as did the other USY (United Synagogue Youth) kids.Read More


Eprhyme — Engaged and Diverse Hip Hop Jew

By Jay Michaelson

Here’s what it’s not about: cute Yiddish puns, bar mitzvah kitsch, Manischewitz cocktails, or the novelty of a Jewish “insert unexpected form” (rap, reggae, whatever) star. Here’s what it does seem to be about: post-sacred-cow radical pluralism, pantheism, religious consciousness fused with social action, and an uncompromising and unimpressed blend of urban forms and neo-Hasidic spirituality.Read More


A 'New Jew' Goes to Auschwitz

By Jay Michaelson

I am not a Holocaust Jew. Though Auschwitz loomed large in my Jewish education, and though as a child I was duly traumatized and outraged by what my teachers described as the inexplicable and unprecedented evil perpetrated against us, it plays only a small role in my current Jewish identity and practice. This is by choice, as I have long regarded our community’s obsession with “what they did to us” as misguided in a number of ways.Read More



 

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