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 What a Golem horror movie tells us about coronavirus
By now, we’ve all heard what we need to do to help combat the novel coronavirus outbreak: Practice rigorous social distancing to flatten the curve, sing “Happy Birthday” twice while washing our hands, avoid all face-touching. But the 2018 horror film “The Golem,” directed by brothers Doron and Yoav Paz, presents another alternative to the…
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Culture We didn’t need Gal Gadot’s celebrity-packed ‘Imagine,’ but, well, here it is
Even Wonder Woman is wondering how to keep morale up these days. Yesterday, Gal Gadot gathered her celebrity pals together for a pastiched video of them singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” on Instagram. “Day six in self-quarantine,” Gadot explained before the singing started. “I gotta say, these past few days have gotten me feeling a bit…
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Culture Daily Distraction: A ‘Plot Against America’ podcast, Netflix Party and Yiddish cooking
Welcome to your daily distraction, our recommendations for ways to stay engaged and entertained while we socially distance ourselves to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak. You can find our past recommendations here; many of the opportunities we’ve highlighted are ongoing. Hi! First of all, breathe and center yourself. It’s Thursday, and you’ve almost made it…
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Fast Forward Amazon bans sale of ‘Mein Kampf’
A month after Amazon removed several white nationalist and anti-Semitic items from its website, the online retailer has stopped selling a most editions of the most notorious anti-Semitic screed of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” The move comes after a decades-long push by Holocaust memorial organizations, The Guardian reported. Amazon alerted booksellers of…
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Culture Daily distraction: Ben Platt’s dance party, the Folksbiene online and ‘West Side Story’
As the novel coronavirus outbreak continues, social distancing remains the cool thing to do — just listen to Mel Brooks. Luckily, our favorite cultural figures and institutions continue to find creative ways to keep us entertained. In case you missed our first installment, as the country enters an unprecedented period of isolation to stem the…
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Culture We used to conduct weddings in cemeteries to fight epidemics — really
As the world confronts the novel coronavirus pandemic, many Jewish leaders are urging their communities to make changes in their lives to help cut the crisis short: Don’t kiss mezuzot, convene with your minyan online. Keep events like weddings small, if at all possible. But in past moments of public health crisis, our community wasn’t…
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Culture ‘The Plot Against America’: How the Forward reported the transformation of Charles A. Lindbergh
Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” is in some ways his least speculative book. Many of the characters, including Roth, his brother and his parents, are real, and most of the events that precede his counterhistory — where Charles A. Lindbergh becomes president in 1940 — truly happened. Roth’s Newark, was a thoroughly Jewish, if…
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Culture David Simon on ‘The Plot Against America’ and our crisis of democracy
Anti-Semite, aviator and national hero Charles Lindbergh never ran for president — but isolationists thought of courting his candidacy more than once. The first time was in 1940, when some Republicans considered him for their ticket against incumbent Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The second time was in 1944, when Gerald L.K. Smith sought him as the…
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