PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar
By PJ Grisar
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Culture Tobi Kahn marks a new Jewish ritual — with a new piece of art
What does tikkun olam look like? On Yom HaTzedek, a new holiday that falls on Pesach Sheni, it looks like a box. For Tobi Kahn, the renowned painter and sculptor, that box looks like a city awash in deep blue, its interior reflecting the heavens, its slot like a mailbox to God. On a Wednesday…
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Culture William Shatner may be going to space (please alert space)
Rocket Man indeed. William Shatner, abusive Twitter gadfly and erstwhile Starfleet captain will go to space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin per a TMZ report. If true, Shatner, 90, some few decades older than the cast of “Space Cowboys,” would be the oldest man ever to go to space. (Unless we count the ancient David…
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Culture Netflix’s Holocaust revenge drama changes the facts – is nationalism to blame, or just an actor’s mistake?
As villains go, you can’t do much better than the one at the center of Netflix’s latest, a man called “Doctor Death.” In “Jaguar,” a crew of Spanish Holocaust survivors in 1960s Madrid hunt down Aribert Heim, a real-life Nazi physician who escaped justice for nearly half a century. “He was a doctor at Mauthausen,”…
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Art Now in English, an almost-forgotten story by Sholem Aleichem
We know the usual occupations in Sholom Aleichem’s fiction: dairyman, butcher, tailor. But did you hear the one about pickpockets (or “nimble fingers”), robbers (“snatchers”) and horse thieves? If not, don’t worry — most haven’t. As far as we know, Sholom Aleichem, the beloved Yiddish author best-remembered for his Tevye stories, only wrote about such…
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Culture From Drake to Javanka, 12 celebs who need to atone this Yom Kippur
Everyday Jews have the benefit of not having our sins amplified by TMZ or splashed onto tabloid covers. We can hide in our anonymity and use Yom Kippur to engage personally with our creator, taking stock of our sins while God, like Anna Wintour plotting the Met Gala invitations, decides who will be inscribed in…
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Culture Does ‘Hallelujah’ explain Leonard Cohen? A new movie thinks so.
'Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song,' explains Leonard Cohen's life through his most famous work.
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Culture When Jake Tapper dated Monica Lewinsky — and wrote a gross piece about it
Will Jake Tapper be a character on “Impeachment: American Crime Story?” I don’t mean Jake Tapper the respected CNN anchor, but his former self, Jake Tapper the young Beltway reporter, who made a name for himself when he wrote a detailed dispatch from his date with Monica Lewinsky. That Tapper, whose article, published in the…
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Culture She’s 16. She’s Jewish. She’s Gotham’s newest superhero.
Willow Zimmerman is a 16-year-old activist. When she isn’t in school or holding up a picket sign, she can be found batch-baking rugelach or splitting a Reuben with a stray Great Dane she named Lebowitz (after Fran). But Willow has a secret set of extracurriculars. She helps run an illegal poker game for one of…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture How my odious cousin Roy Cohn was responsible for creating Donald Trump — and me
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish ווירטועלע ייִדיש־קורסן וועגן טעאַטער, גנבֿים און, להבֿדיל, די פּרשיותOnline Yiddish courses about the theater, thieves and the weekly Torah portion
די ייִדיש־פּראָגראַם פֿונעם אַרבעטער־רינג נעמט אויך אַרײַן באַשעװיס־זינגערס „מײַן טאַטנס בית־דין־שטוב“
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Culture New conspiracy theory just dropped — Jews are causing the hurricanes
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Opinion Allies at odds, Netanyahu and Emmanuel Macron have more in common than they’d like to admit
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Art What if there was a flag that both Israelis and Palestinians could take pride in flying?
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