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 classic Yiddish tales are being brought back to life — and in English too!
David Forman’s newest book is an old one. Rich with tales of giants, the Tudor court and highwaymen besieging a humble Jewish village, “The Clever Little Tailor” is the first English translation and bilingual edition of Yiddish writer Solomon Simon’s 1933 collection of stories about Shnayderl the tailor. The book is noteworthy for having the…
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Culture Can Kabbalah explain the most mystifying new movie on Amazon?
I was in sixth grade when I first heard about “the greatest anime of all time,” an epic of teen angst and robot-on-monster violence called “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” I can’t remember the name of the kid who told me about it — only that he was a grade older and I very much wanted his…
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Culture Oops! A Fox anchor said Karl Marx wrote ‘Mein Kampf’
There are moments in literary history that shape the world. Around 1445 B.C.E. unnamed sources composed the first books of the Bible. In 1450 Johannes Gutenberg perfected his printing press. Thomas Paine publishes “Common Sense” in 1776. And in 1848, Karl Marx wrote “Mein Kampf” — at least that’s what one Fox anchor said. On…
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Culture The ‘Fauda’ follow-up is a messy mystery that will probably be a runaway hit
“Who would you, Lior Raz, like to have as your love interest in our new series?” Avi Issacharoff, the co-creator of “Hit & Run,” probably asked one day early on in the show’s development. Raz’s response, one imagines, was probably: “A member of the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv. And make her considerably younger….
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Culture A new video game has you ‘Heal Hitler’ — should we be outraged?
In a handsomely-furnished psychologist’s office, below a picture window offering a view of a city skyline, a reclined figure, staring down a stately portrait of Freud, speaks about his doting mother and his abusive father. The patient, a man in his mid-30s, is a veteran and amateur artist with a criminal record; he is prone…
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Culture Meet the Ben & Jerry’s franchisee pushing back against boycott — and his customers, who just want to cool off
It’s a high of 90 in New York, but the southeast corner of 104th and Broadway is shady with scaffolding seating. It helps that there’s ice cream nearby. Joel Gasman’s Ben & Jerry’s store, a handsome scoop shop with a mosaic pillar at the entrance, is supplying the usual bonanza of flavors and, beginning this…
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Culture Jackie Mason’s racist remarks are also a part of his legacy
Jackie Mason, who died on Saturday at age 93, will forever hold a storied place in American comedy for helping introduce to the mainstream a brand of humor that was fearlessly, unapologetically Jewish. But the late comedian’s brazen style of commentary also carries a dark legacy in his history of racist remarks. In 1989, Jewish…
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Culture The dangerous disrespect of making Anthony Bourdain speak from the dead
I should have trusted my bullshit detector; Anthony Bourdain would be ashamed of me. (At least I think he would.) There were moments in Morgan Neville’s “Roadrunner” that seemed a bit too perfect. The perfection didn’t stem from cinematography or editing or the arbitrary intercuts of Kurosawa films. It didn’t come from the insights of…
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