PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at grisar@forward.com and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar
By PJ Grisar
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Culture How Jewish Studies Became A Central Part Of American Colleges
In American universities, the trajectory of Jewish studies has always been a product of the times, from the Hebrew learning of prospective clergy in the colonial era, to today’s vibrant intersectional field for grads and undergrads. As Judith R. Baskin, the Philip H. Knight Professor Emerita in Humanities at the University of Oregon, wrote in…
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Culture Updated: All About Taylor Swift’s Feud With Record Exec Scooter Braun
This is not a “Love Story.” Taylor Swift has alleged that her former label manager Scott Borchetta and his business partner Scooter Braun are keeping her from what would be a career high. Their company has denied the charges and entered the fray with allegations of their own. But this whole thing keeps getting wilder,…
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Culture Trump’s Anti-Semitic Canard Honks At Adam Schiff
On Wednesday, House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff conducted the first public impeachment hearing on President Donald Trump with poise, conviction and — certainly — strength. Schiff duly addressed Republicans’ procedural challenges, and refused to be ruffled by, among other canards, his counterpart, ranking member Devin Nunes’s new claim that Democrats were trying to obtain nude…
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Culture After Polish Government Complaint, Netflix To Amend Concentration Camp Maps
Following public complaints from the Polish government, Netflix will add explanatory notes to World War II-era maps showing the location of concentration camps used in its documentary series “The Devil Next Door.” The move by the streaming giant, reported by The New York Times, follows a letter of complaint from Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Marawiecki…
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Culture Rick Ludwin, NBC Exec Who Gave ‘Seinfeld’ A Shot, Dies At 71
When the history books are written (and some of them already have been), the record will show that it took a gentile to make “Seinfeld” a reality. Rick Ludwin, the NBC executive who was the so-called Show About Nothing’s biggest cheerleader at the network, died Sunday of organ failure at a Los Angeles hospital, The…
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Culture The Strange Saga Of The Fake Hitler Diaries That Sparked An International Scandal
In 1978, a handsome leather volume monogrammed with Adolf Hitler’s initials entered the collectors’ market. It would be the first of many. The books were diaries chronicling the Fuhrer’s life, often in banal detail. The New Yorker reported in 2013 that they included reflections on his bad breath and girlfriend Eva Braun’s false pregnancy. But,…
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Culture The Most Incredible Stories You Never Heard About Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini is the immortal alter ego of the late Hungarian-Jewish immigrant Ehrich Weiss, the son of a rabbi and an incomparable mama’s boy. Many of the marvels of Houdini’s life, due in part to his own self-mythologizing, are, likewise, so much hocus pocus. “Nobody created myths like him,” Joe Posnanski, the author of the…
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Culture Roman Polanski Accused Of 1975 Rape
New allegations of rape have emerged against fugitive director Roman Polanski, and Polanski is threatening legal action against the paper that ran the story. On November 8, the French publication Le Parisien ran a story in which French photographer and former actress Valentine Monnier claimed that she was raped by Polanski at his property in…
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