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 unexpected joys of watching ‘Uncut Gems’ on Netflix
I first met Howard Ratner at a sold-out afternoon showing at the Lincoln Square AMC — back when going to the movies was a thing. The theater was a vivid cross-section of New York life — old gay couples, Modern Orthodox college kids in kippot, young black and Latinx urban professionals. By pinning down Adam…
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Culture This is the only cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” we need right now
Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” began its life, in 1984’s “Various Positions,” as a profoundly weird song with gospel choir accompaniment, a painfully-of-its-era drum machine and a stentorian and unemotive delivery from the poet himself. But you don’t really care for that music, do you? For many, the template for all covers of Cohen’s initially unremarked ballad…
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Culture Rolf Hochhuth, playwright who challenged the Vatican’s WWII legacy, dies at 89
Rolf Hochhuth, the controversial German dramatist whose play “The Deputy” sparked protests and ignited an ongoing reappraisal of Pope Pius XII’s World War II-era legacy, died May 13 at his home in Berlin. He was 89 years old. In the 1950s, Hochhuth began studying the history of the Third Reich, which had risen to power…
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Culture The Jewiest (and least Jewish) Muppets
Some Muppets don’t even have lower bodies. But they might all have faith traditions. Last night, Twitter’s favorite rabbi, Danya Ruttenberg, invited the internet to speculate on the religious affiliations of every Muppet ever. Ok, let’s do this. Religious affiliation of every single Muppet. I’ll start. Statler and Waldorf are Jews, obviously, as is Fozzie…
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Culture Trump likes Henry Ford’s “bloodline.” So did Charles Lindbergh
There are a lot of things Donald Trump could praise the Ford Motor Company for. At its inception, the automobile manufacturer made cars accessible and reduced the strain on laborers through the assembly line process, and, just recently, the corporation began producing ventilators and face shields to support hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. That last…
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Fast Forward Nazi hunter attacks Whitney Museum over ouster of vice chair
A former Nazi hunter is looking to strip the Whitney Museum of its tax exempt status. Neal Sher, an attorney and former head of the Office of Special Investigations, a Justice Department unit focused on Nazi prosecution, filed a complaint to the IRS on May 8. As the Financial Times reported, Sher, who led the…
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Culture Who should replace Ruby Rose as the Jewish Batwoman?
It was the most controversial bat-casting since Ben Affleck. No — not Robert Pattinson. When it was announced that Ruby Rose would take on the title role of Kate Kane in the CW’s “Batwoman,” fans of the crimson-haired crusader were not having it. Rose ticked one box — a lesbian woman playing a lesbian woman…
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Culture This Puerto Rican-Jewish author misses her Mumbai home
Leah Franqui is stranded in her hometown of Philadelphia and missing her life in Mumbai. The 32-year-old Puerto Rican-Jewish novelist, whose books examine the United States and India through an outsider’s eye, has spent the last five years in the Indian metropolis, where she relocated after marrying her Kolkata-born husband. But the COVID-19 pandemic has…
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