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 ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and all things Jewish from a very socially-distanced Emmys
Most Emmys nights, the stars are out in force. In 2020, they stayed in, and didn’t so much take home awards as have them delivered to their doorstep. Host Jimmy Kimmel worked the room at an empty Staples Center, bare but for a skeleton camera crew and the occasional socially-distanced celebrity cameo. Yet for the…
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Fast Forward On Rosh Hashanah, Jews mourn the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
News of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death at the age of 87 reached Jews right as many were preparing for the start of our holiest season: It was the first night of Rosh Hashanah, and the beginning of the Jewish New Year. And so, a time of joy and sweetness became something else….
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Culture Woody Allen’s latest looks just like the one before it, and the one before that…
“I’ve had a chance to look at my life over the last few weeks, and I realize I’ve made a lot of bad decisions.” This line, delivered by Wallace Shawn, toward the end of a trailer for Woody Allen’s “Rifkin’s Festival,” premiering at the San Sebastian Film Festival September 18, would appear to be the…
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Culture Eisenhower Memorial honors a general and president who preserved memory of the Holocaust
There’s a story about Dwight D. Eisenhower that has become the stuff of legend. After witnessing the horrors of Ohrdruf concentration camp in Germany as the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, he told his men who liberated the camps to collect testimony and film and photograph everything, because “the day will…
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Culture Belarusians use Chagall to slam police crackdowns on protesters
Marc Chagall loved his flying figures. Some have speculated that the recurring image of humble folks floating through the sky and over cityscapes is a riff on his own identification as a luftmentsh, or “airman,” a dreamer with big ideas but no concrete plans to realize them. But to anchor Chagall to this one meaning…
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Culture Does celebs’ Instagram boycott stand a chance of changing Facebook?
If you’ve noticed your Instagram feed is a little quieter than usual today, there’s a good reason. As part of the activist movement Stop Hate for Profit’s “Week of Action,” over two dozen A-Listers are participating in a one-day Instagram “freeze” — meaning no pet pics, snaps of acai pudding or sun-dappled shots of infinity…
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Culture BDS calls for boycott of Israeli-Arab internet personality Nas Daily
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is urging Arab content creators to boycott the massively popular Arab-Israeli internet personality, Nas Daily. Nas Daily is the handle of 28-year-old Nuseir Yassin, whose Facebook page, featuring cheery one-minute travelogues, has over 17 million followers. His videos from around the world are treasured for their spirit of global…
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Culture Why Paul Rudd’s coronavirus PSA for Millennials makes me feel ancient
For years our greatest minds have puzzled over a fundamental paradox of postmodern comedy: Is it possible to be so woefully, self-awarely out-of-touch that you end up on the right side of cool? The conceit was tested yet again in a newly-released COVID-19 PSA tweeted by Pandemic Daddy and Auschwitz thirst-trapper Governor Andrew Cuomo, featuring…
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Opinion I’m a Jew of color. Ta-Nehisi Coates can’t apply US lessons to Israel.
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Culture Columbus may have had Jewish heritage — that doesn’t mean he was Jewish
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