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 When Max von Sydow entertained Holocaust survivors
Actor Max von Sydow was not Jewish or German, and yet, through much of his English-language film career he played Holocaust survivors or Nazis. A favorite of Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish performer, who died March 8 at the age of 90, was a presence in film from his time in “The Seventh Seal” and “The…
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Culture What does the Bible say about quarantine?
In recent weeks, the Jewish community has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus. The good news is, we’re old hands at dealing with quarantines. Our history with the practice of self-isolation began during our trip out of Egypt to the Promised Land, where Moses was our first public health official. In Leviticus, Moses, giving…
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Culture How Jewish immigrants helped build Montana
When the 1860s Montana gold rush ended, the Jews of the territory were just getting started. “The thing about gold towns is that they come and go,” said Paul Kingsford, a native Englishman who now lives in Missoula, Mont. “And so they built these wooden buildings downtown, because they knew there was no point —…
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Culture National Museum of American Jewish History files for bankruptcy
Faced with a decade-long deficit, the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, rocked in recent years by institutional changes, is hoping that filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy will move the institution toward financial sustainability. The museum, known for its exhibits on Leonard Bernstein, Richard Avedon and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has…
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Culture Mourning ‘Actors Studio’ host James Lipton — and remembering his best moments
James Lipton, the oft-parodied host of “Inside the Actors Studio” has died at the age of 93. Famous for his pomposity, Mid-Atlantic accent and corny closing questions, Lipton was a meme-worthy figure before the advent of memes. “MadTV” and “Saturday Night Live” skewered him, with cast members playing up his pretension; for “The Simpsons,” he…
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Culture Will Pope Pius’ archives shed light on his silence during the Shoah?
Over a 75 years after Nazis conducted mass deportations of Roman Jews to Auschwitz, we may finally learn why Pope Pius XII, heralded by some as a man who quietly saved Jewish lives and dubbed “Hitler’s Pope” by others, did not speak up on their behalf. On March 2 Pius XII’s archives will be made…
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Culture Bernie Sanders made a documentary on Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, and it’s the most Bernie Sanders thing ever
If Bernie Sanders looks and sounds like a man who once produced amateur socialist agitprop out of his home, it may be because he did just that. Yes, in 1977, after a failed run for Vermont’s governorship, Sanders and his neighbor Nancy Barnett launched the American People’s Historical Society, an educational video endeavor billed in…
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Culture NYC subway map designer Michael Hertz dies at 87
Michael Hertz, the graphic designer who helped make the New York City subway system legible for over 4 million riders a day, has passed away. He was 87. Hertz’s son Eugene confirmed his death, telling CNN he died of natural causes on February 18, at Nassau University Medical Center. In 1979, Hertz’s firm, Michael Hertz…
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