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 The real ‘Mank’ hated Hitler and helped refugees — he was also an isolationist
Holed up at a dusty ranch in Victorville, California, with a full-leg cast, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz has been self-medicating as he works his way through a draft of “Citizen Kane.” When his secretary, Rita Alexander, learns he’s sneaked booze into the guest residence, she confronts his accomplice, a German nurse. “Frieda, you mustn’t let…
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Culture The terrifying marriage of convenience between Israel and evangelical Zionists
At an August rally in Wisconsin, Donald Trump ditched the dog whistle of Jewish control and said the quiet part out loud. “We moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem,” Trump said to cheers at an Oshkosh airport. “That’s for the evangelicals.” Trump then paused and mused on a fact that struck him as curious:…
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Culture There’s no way I can write a normal tribute to Woody Allen
Few still-living artists have tested the premise of the Death of the Author as much as Woody Allen — not so much for what he did, but what he’s accused of doing. While as a filmmaker, Allen, who turns a vital 85 today, has cemented as indelible a cinematic persona as Chaplin’s Tramp, in the…
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Culture Looking for the truth in Gaza — through a camera lens
Jehad al-Saftawi grew up in Gaza. The field in front of his boyhood home was used to launch rockets into Israel. As he approached manhood, he witnessed Israel rain down rockets of its own, leveling apartment blocks. To get the full picture of where he comes from, Saftawi insists on making both of these truths…
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Culture How America’s first Jew gave the turkey its name
Author’s Note: This article, detailing the mysterious life of America’s first Jew, was originally published in 2018. Among the interesting trivia about Luis de Torres’ journey from Spain is his purported naming of the North American turkey, a theory that, combined with his pilgrim-like voyage to escape persecution, make it appropriate Thanksgiving Day reading. For…
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Culture Monolith discovered in Utah wilderness has strong ‘2001’ energy
It’s a mystery some cinephiles may not want solved: Who — or what — placed a towering metal monolith in the middle of Utah desert? On Nov. 18, officers for Utah’s Department of Public Safety discovered the 10 to 12-foot tall edifice, which looks like a stainless steel prototype of Stanley Kubrick’s famously cryptic monolith…
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Culture A new box set of Yiddish films arrives – but only on Blu-Ray
Read this article in Yiddish. Today, 10 fully-restored classics of Yiddish cinema, featuring new commentary tracks and subtitles, will be available in a box set for the first time. But you may not be able to watch them. “This is coming out strictly on Blu-Ray,” said Allen Lewis Rickman, an actor and Yiddishist who wrote…
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Culture Why Bob Dylan preferred I.B. Singer over Jack Kerouac
One Singer story 'stayed in my head for months afterward,' Dylan said.
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Fast Forward Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to helm EPA, says he received bomb threat with ‘pro-Palestinian themed message’
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