Jay Michaelson

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American writer and academic

title: "Jay Michaelson" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1971-births", "21st-century-american-rabbis", "american-male-journalists", "american-male-non-fiction-writers", "boston-university-faculty", "american-gay-writers", "jewish-american-journalists", "jewish-american-non-fiction-writers", "gay-jews", "living-people", "huffpost-writers-and-columnists", "american-spiritual-writers", "radical-faeries-members", "columbia-college,-columbia-university-alumni", "yale-law-school-alumni"] description: "American writer and academic" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Michaelson" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American writer and academic ::

Jay Michaelson is an American writer, journalist, professor, and rabbi. He is a visiting scholar at the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality and was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in Spring 2025. Dr. Michaelson is a frequent commentator on CNN, and a contributor to Rolling Stone and other publications, having been the legal affairs columnist at The Daily Beast for eight years. He is the author of ten books, and won the 2023 National Jewish Book Award for scholarship and the 2023 New York Society for Professional Journalists Award for Opinion Writing.

Journalism

Michaelson's journalistic work has focused on the intersections of religion and law. He has written on the Supreme Court, the legal recognition of psychedelics, LGBT issues, climate change, antisemitism, voter suppression, judicial nominations, and other subjects, and has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, and Meet the Press.

In 2013, Michaelson wrote the first long-form report on the right-wing religious exemptions movement, Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights. Michaelson's work on this issue gained prominence a year later after the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case and he has written many articles on religious liberty in Reuters, The Washington Post and other publications.

From 2004 to 2017, Michaelson was a columnist and contributing editor to The Forward newspaper. In 2009, his essay entitled "How I'm Losing My Love for Israel" generated substantial controversy in the Jewish world, including responses from Daniel Gordis, and Jonathan Sarna, and prefigured the estrangement of progressive American Jews from the government of Israel. Michaelson was listed in the Forward 50 list of the most influential American Jews in 2009.

Academic work

Michaelson's scholarly work in religious studies has focused on mystical experience, antinomianism, and sexuality. Michaelson holds a PhD in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he wrote his dissertation on the antinomian heretic Jacob Frank. His 2022 book on Frank, The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth, was published by Oxford University Press and won the National Jewish Book Award for scholarship. and has held teaching positions at Boston University Law School and Yale University. Michaelson graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1993, and from Yale Law School in 1997.

Since 2021, Michaelson's work has focused on the intersection of psychedelics, law, and religion. In March, 2025, he co-organized the first-ever conference on the legal recognition of religious psychedelic use in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. He has written and spoken widely on the religious significance of psychedelic practice in Judaism. Michaelson is an affiliated researcher of Harvard Law School's Program in Psychedelic Use, Law, and Spiritual Experience.

Michaelson's other academic work in religious studies includes "Queering Martin Buber: Harry Hay's Erotic Dialogical" (Shofar, 2018), "Conceptualizing Jewish Antinomianism in the 'Words of the Lord' by Jacob Frank" (Modern Judaism, 2017); "The Repersonalization of God: Monism and Theological Polymorphism in Zoharic and Hasidic Imagination" (Imagining the Jewish God, 2016), "Queer Theology and Social Transformation Twenty Years after Jesus ACTED UP" (Theology and Sexuality, 2015), and "Kabbalah and Queer Theology: Resources and Reservations" (Theology and Sexuality, 2012).

Michaelson is also the author of several legal-academic articles including "Rethinking Regulatory Reform: Toxics, Politics and Ethics" (Yale Law Journal, 1996), and "On Listening to the Kulturkampf, Or, How America Overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, Even Though Romer v. Evans Didn’t" (Duke Law Journal, 2000). and "Hating the Law for Christian Reasons: The Religious Roots of American Antinomianism" (Jews and the Law, 2014). His 1998 Stanford Environmental Law Journal article on geoengineering and climate change, described as "seminal" by Salon was the first legal analysis of geoengineering in legal academic literature.

Meditation and spirituality

Michaelson is an ordained rabbi, and teaches meditation in Buddhist, Jewish, and secular contexts. His books on meditation and spirituality include Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment and Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism. From 2018-22, he was a teacher, editor and podcast host at Ten Percent Happier, a meditation app and podcast network. He is also a teacher of jhāna meditation in the Theravādan Buddhist lineage of Ayya Khema and Michaelson's teacher Leigh Brasington and co-leads Jewish meditation retreats at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center.

LGBTQ activism

Michaelson is a rabbi and openly gay. He was a professional religious LGBTQ activist from 2004 to 2013. He was the founder and executive director of Nehirim, an LGBTQ Jewish organization, from 2004 to 2013. His 2009 book God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality was an Amazon bestseller and Lambda Literary Award finalist, and Michaelson spoke at over 100 places of worship during the 2009–15 debates about same-sex marriage. Michaelson was called one of the "Most Inspiring LGBT Religious Leaders" in 2011 by The Huffington Post and one of "Our Religious Allies" by the LGBT newspaper The Advocate.

In 2014, Michaelson co-directed a project at The Daily Beast entitled Quorum: Global LGBT Voices, which features TED-style talks by LGBT leaders from the Global South. Other LGBTQ-focused work includes the chapter on Exodus in the Queer Bible Commentary (2022).

Books

  • God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice (2006)
  • Another Word for Sky: Poems (2007)
  • Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (2009)
  • God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality (2011)
  • Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment (2013)
  • The Gate of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path (2015)
  • Is: Heretical Blessings and Poems (as Yaakov Moshe) (2017)
  • Enlightenment by Trial and Error (2019)
  • The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth (2022)
  • The Secret that is Not a Secret: Ten Heretical Tales (forthcoming 2023)

References

References

  1. "Jay Michaelson, PhD, JD".
  2. "Jay Michaelson". Harvard Law School.
  3. (June 15, 2023). "Trans Activist Banned from White House: CNN commentator Rabbi Jay Michaelson responds".
  4. "Jay Michaelson".
  5. "Jay Michaelson". The Daily Beast.
  6. (January 18, 2023). "72nd National Jewish Book Award Winners".
  7. "2023 Awards Finalists – Deadline Club".
  8. Michaelson, Jay. (2022-06-23). "The Supreme Court Has Endangered the Future of Gun Control".
  9. Michaelson, Jay. (2022-07-07). "Why Same-Sex Marriage May Not Be Doomed at the Supreme Court".
  10. Michaelson, Jay. (2019-09-16). "Why Your Carbon Footprint Is Meaningless". The Daily Beast.
  11. "The Daily Beast's Jay Michaelson Talks About Trump's Role In The Recent Rise Of Anti-Semitic Tweets".
  12. Michaelson, Jay. (October 28, 2018). "Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Is a Moment of Reckoning for American Jews". The Daily Beast.
  13. Michaelson, Jay. (October 12, 2018). "Republicans Have a Secret Weapon in the Midterms: Massive Voter Suppression". The Daily Beast.
  14. Michaelson, Jay. (June 11, 2018). "The Supreme Court Just Let Ohio Commit a Massive Purge of Its Voters". The Daily Beast.
  15. Michaelson, Jay. (November 19, 2018). "He Kept Black People From Voting. GOP Wants Him as a Judge.". The Daily Beast.
  16. Michaelson, Jay. (October 4, 2018). "The Right Thinks Toxic Masculinity Is Just 'Being a Man'". The Daily Beast.
  17. (October 30, 2018). "Does Donald Trump Bear Responsibility for Pittsburgh?".
  18. Jay Michaelson. (April 5, 2018). "Is EPA Chief Scott Pruitt "Too Corrupt to Fire"? Katy Tur & Jay Michaelson, 4/4/2018".
  19. "Gays under attack over Ebola". MSNBC.
  20. "Prayer Breakfast Dispute: Christianity and the Crusades". NBC News.
  21. (March 21, 2013). "Redefining Religious Liberty The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights". Political Research Associates.
  22. (March 24, 2014). "Why corporations don't deserve religious freedom". Reuters.
  23. (June 30, 2014). "Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision puts faith in compromise". Reuters.
  24. Jay Michaelson – Religion News Service. (April 6, 2015). "A 'religious freedom' proposal that I can agree with (Commentary)". Washington Post.
  25. (March 13, 2016). "Jay Michaelson". The Forward.
  26. (October 21, 2009). "Where Is the Love for Israel?". The Forward.
  27. Daniel Gordis. (October 12, 2009). "No Right to Exhaustion". The Forward.
  28. Jonathan D. Sarna. (September 30, 2009). "After Utopia, Loving Israel". The Forward.
  29. (April 24, 2014). "Resource Speakers Jay Michaelson - CLGS".
  30. "Psychedelics and Monotheistic Traditions: Sacramental Practice and Legal Recognition".
  31. (December 12, 2024). "Psychedelics and Judaism: New Skin for the Old Ceremony".
  32. (June 8, 2023). "Are Psychedelics Theologically Significant for Judaism?".
  33. (October 28, 2024). "Psychedelic Use, Law, and Spiritual Experience (PULSE) Affiliated Researcher".
  34. (2018). "Jay Michaelson, "Queering Martin Buber: Harry Hay's Erotic Dialogical"". Shofar.
  35. (2017). "Conceptualizing Jewish Antinomianism in the "Words of the Lord" by Jacob Frank". Modern Judaism – A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience.
  36. (January 2016). "The Repersonalization of God: Monism and Theological Polymorphism in Zoharic and Hasidic Imagination". Imagining the Jewish God (Graven Images).
  37. (2015). "Queer Theology and Social Transformation Twenty Years after Jesus ACTED UP". Theology & Sexuality.
  38. (2012). "Kabbalah and Queer Theology". Theology & Sexuality.
  39. "Yale Law Journal – Archive".
  40. "Duke Law Journal".
  41. (2012). "Hating the Law for Christian Reasons: The Religious Roots of American Antinomianism".
  42. "Jews and the Law|Hardcover".
  43. http://elj.stanford.edu/elj/public/archives/author.shtml#m {{Webarchive. link. (July 9, 2010 Stanford Environmental Law Journal)
  44. Online : http://www.metatronics.net/lit/geo2.html {{Webarchive. link. (May 19, 2015)
  45. Elizabeth Svoboda. (April 2, 2008). "The sun blotted out from the sky". Salon.
  46. Graeme Wood. (July 1, 2009). "Re-Engineering the Earth". The Atlantic.
  47. Noah Shachtman. (June 18, 2013). "In Silicon Valley, Meditation Is No Fad. It Could Make Your Career".
  48. (December 8, 2013). "Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment by Jay Michaelson".
  49. "Everything is God".
  50. "Meditation and Pride".
  51. "10% Happier".
  52. Michaelson, Jay. (2013). "Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment". North Atlantic Books.
  53. (2019-10-11). "Why a Jewish Meditation Retreat?".
  54. Rock, Ben. (May 1, 2012). "'God vs. Gay?' author comes to Nashville". Out & About Newspaper.
  55. "Jay Michaelson".
  56. Reese, Jenn. (April 16, 2012). "24th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists And Winners".
  57. (October 20, 2011). "Inspiring LGBT Religious Leaders". The Huffington Post.
  58. (April 6, 2012). "An Easter Treat Christians on Your Side - Advocate.com".
  59. "Quorum: Global LGBT Voices – Alice Nkom".
  60. (September 30, 2022). "The Queer Bible Commentary, Second Edition". SCM Press.
  61. "God in Your Body".
  62. "Another Word for Sky".
  63. "Everything Is God".
  64. "God vs. Gay?".
  65. "Evolving Dharma".
  66. "The Gate of Tears by Jay Michaelson".
  67. (November 8, 2017). "Is: Heretical Jewish Blessings and Poems | jaymichaelson.net".
  68. "Enlightenment by Trial and Error".
  69. (2022). "The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth". Oxford University Press.

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