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 The Peculiar Saga Of The Black Jew Who Founded San Francisco
In 1840 or 1841, a wedding in New Orleans was abruptly canceled. The bridegroom, admitting he was born out of wedlock and that his mother was black, fled on a ship bound for the West. His well-heeled bride-to-be died soon after this, some believe of shock. That ashamed groom, who was not allowed to marry…
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Culture Forward Contributor Julia M. Klein Receives Second National Book Critics Circle Nomination
The 2018 finalists for the National Book Critics Circle were announced January 22, recognizing Jewish writers Stephen Greenblatt, for his book “Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics”, Rachel Kushner’s novel “Mars Room” and Adam Winkler’s “We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights.” While we can’t help but bask in the tribal naches of these…
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Culture With ‘Ghostbusters 3’ Jason Reitman Is Picking Up Where His Dad Left Off
No one has ever inherited a cooler car than Jason Reitman. Yesterday, the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker announced on Instagram that he would be taking the wheel of the “Ghostbusters” franchise from his father, Ivan, who directed the first two films. The reveal came in the form of an image of Reitman, fils standing near the…
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Culture 8 Questions For Author Sam Lipsyte
No one hits a satirical bullseye like Sam Lipsyte. In “Home Land,” a Portnoy-esque series of monologues, published in 2005, the novelist sniped at the convention of the dreaded alumni newsletter; in the 2010 novel “The Ask,” Lipsyte took aim at the donor system in American higher learning. His targets have only gotten bigger: His…
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Culture Librarians And Researchers Are Finally Making Strides Returning Nazi-Looted Books
If you wander the stately stacks of a European library, you may very well encounter books that were looted by the Nazis in World War II. During the 1930s and 40s, Alfred Rosenberg, the leader of the Nazi’s Office of Foreign Policy led the eponymous Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg task force in pillaging over 6,000 archives…
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Art A 92-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Was Haunted By Hitler. So He Started Dressing Up As Him.
There is no one way to grieve or process a tragedy of an unimaginable scale. Still, few displays of grief are as curious as that favored by the 92-year-old Israeli artist Dov Or-Ner, a Holocaust survivor who appears in public dressed as Adolf Hitler. Or-Ner, a veteran sculptor and painter whose parents died in the…
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Culture He Plays Ukraine’s President On TV. Now He’s Running For That Very Same Office.
It’s become a cliché in the United States to say we have a Reality TV President, but Ukraine may well get a sitcom Head of State. 40-year-old Jewish comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy formally announced his plans to run for the Ukrainian presidency shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve If he wins, Ukranians may not be…
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Culture Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman To Bring ‘Yiddish Policemen’s Union’ To TV
Proving they’re more than just a literary dream couple, Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon are in the thick of a new endeavor: Overseeing a TV show. The duo has collaborated on TV projects before, starting with a 2011 project titled “Hobgoblin” that remains unmade. But their latest project is different, because it’s an adaptation of…
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