Dr. Jay Michaelson is vice president of the Arcus Foundation and the author of five books and two hundred articles on religion, sexuality, ethics, and contemplative practice. His book, God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (2011), was an Amazon.com bestseller and Lambda Literary Award finalist and his most recent book, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism, and the Next Generation of Enlightenment was published in 2013 by North Atlantic Books. His other books include Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (2009) and Another Word for Sky: Poems (2007). Jay is a contributing editor to the Forward newspaper and associate editor of Religion Dispatches magazine, and his articles appear in The Daily Beast, Salon, The Huffington Post, and other publications.
The Arcus Foundation is a leading global foundation advancing LGBT equality. Prior to Arcus, Jay was the founder of Nehirim, a national LGBT Jewish community; the Religious Liberty Fellow at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank; and co-founder of Eshel, an Orthodox Jewish LGBT organization. Jay’s work in this area has been featured on CNN, NPR, and in the New York Times.
In 2009, Jay was included on the Forward 50 list of the fifty most influential American Jews, and in 2010 he won the New York Society of Professional Journalists’ award for opinion writing. His degrees come form Yale, Hebrew University, Columbia, and Sarah Lawrence. He has held teaching positions at Boston University Law School, City College of New York, and Yale University.