PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar
By PJ Grisar
-
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…
-
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…
-
Culture Why ‘Jojo Rabbit’ is heading to a classroom near you
Last year, “Jojo Rabbit,” the Hitler Youth satire by Taika Waititi, charmed audiences and baffled skeptics, managing to be whimsical, winning and kind-hearted — while also featuring an imaginary Adolf Hitler who dines on unicorns. Now, the Oscar-winning film is on its way to classrooms as a teaching tool, aimed at educating young people about…
-
Culture An intimate tribute to Rachel Cowan, trailblazing rabbi
Filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman remembers her first private conversation with Rabbi Rachel Cowan in 1989. “We were in a hot tub on a Wexner retreat in Aspen, Colorado,” Weiman-Kelman said over the phone from her home in Israel. “She was teaching and she was just extraordinary. There’s like 12 years between us, and at that time…
-
Culture Auschwitz Museum objects to ‘Hunters’ over invented Nazi atrocities
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has accused Amazon’s Nazi revenge series “Hunters” of recklessly inventing a Holocaust atrocity. The museum’s objection came in response to a central sequence involving a grisly game of chess. In the first episode, two members of the central 1970s Nazi-hunting crew —mastermind Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) and his protégé Jonah (Logan…
-
Film & TV A cult Israeli rock opera seeks cult movie success
Anti-war messages, as much electric guitar riffs, are a common theme of rock musicals from “Hair” to “American Idiot.” It’s no surprise that Israel has a peacenik rock opera, too, but you may find yourself bewildered by what it has to say. Keren Yedaya’s “Red Fields” (2019), which opens the New York Sephardic Film Festival…
-
Culture The curator of the Polish Jewish museum wins $500k award – here’s her story
In late January, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett received a call from an unfamiliar Israeli number. It was the president of Tel Aviv University, informing her she had received an award of half a million dollars. “It’s like a TV show when they call you completely out of the blue,” said Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator…
-
Culture About that Pete Buttigieg Bernie Sanders essay…
WRITER’S NOTE: During a February 2020 Democratic debate in Nevada, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg about a 2000 essay he wrote in praise of Bernie Sanders. “The qualities I admired then are qualities I still respect a great deal,” Buttigieg responded. “I never said that I agree with every part of his policy…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News That whites-only, no Jews allowed Arkansas community is legal, says state’s attorney general. How?
- 2
Opinion As an Israeli political scientist, I resisted thinking this war was a genocide. Here’s what changed my mind
- 3
Opinion I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel
- 4
News In a first, Orthodox rabbinical school ordains an out gay rabbi
In Case You Missed It
-
BINTEL BRIEF I prepare bodies as part of my synagogue’s burial society, but I’m an anti-Zionist. Is that OK?
-
Books Amid the terror of war in Ukraine, a stirring debut novel demonstrates the power of love and art
-
Opinion Hamas should release all the hostages. But it’s foolish to think that would end the war
-
Fast Forward Anti-Jewish hate crimes reach record high in the United States, according to FBI
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
