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 Susan Choi, László Krasznahorkai Take Home National Book Awards
On November 20, the National Book Foundation feted six diverse winners for its 70th annual National Book Awards. Novelist Susan Choi, the daughter of a Korean father and a Russian-Jewish mother won the fiction prize for her fifth book, “Trust Exercise,” a narratively-inventive, #MeToo-informed story about a performing arts high school in the 1980s. The…
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Culture Lin-Manuel Miranda Almost Did ‘My Name Is Asher Lev’ Instead Of ‘Hamilton’
Lin-Manuel Miranda is a household name. He made Alexander Hamilton one, too. Might he have done the same for a young ultra-Orthodox painter named Asher Lev? During a November 19 Reddit Ask Me Anything, Miranda said that he once owned the theatrical rights to Chaim Potok’s novel “My Name is Asher Lev” (1972), which follows…
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Culture Vampire Weekend, Babs And RBG’s Son Pick Up 2020 Grammy Nominations
As with all things Jewish, there are ups, and there are downs. At first glance 2020’s Grammy nominees, announced November 20, find our people performing admirably, but not necessarily with the degree of success to which we’ve become accustomed. Drake, for example, only has two nominations, down from last year’s seven. But the Grammys distributes…
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Culture What’s Jewish About The 10 Democratic Debaters: A Visual Guide
From the earliest stirrings of our republic, American presidents have been connected to the Jewish people. General Washington relied on financier Haym Salomon for ready cash for the Continental Army, and as our population climbed, Jews have served as Supreme Court justices, cabinet secretaries, speechwriters, senators and security experts called on to testify in impeachment…
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Culture Read Meghan Markle’s Favorite Jewish Books
From Noam Chomsky to Annie Leibovitz, here's what Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, has on her bookshelf.
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Culture Amazon Is Scrupulously Destroying Nazi Props Used In ‘Man In The High Castle’
The Amazon Prime series “The Man in the High Castle” had a rocky start when it came to Nazi imagery. In 2015, the show, set in an alternate universe in which the Axis won World War II and split the United States between Japanese and German control, was the subject of early outrage. The cause…
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Culture Nebuchadneezy? Kanye West To Debut Opera Based On The Jews’ Babylonian Captor
Mere weeks after releasing a gospel album featuring Kenny G, Kanye West is set to bring the world an opera about one of the Jewish people’s greatest tormentors. That’s right, folks: Kanye is going full Verdi and giving us his riff on Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian king who, in the Book of Daniel, went mad…
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Culture How Jewish Studies Became A Central Part Of American Colleges
In American universities, the trajectory of Jewish studies has always been a product of the times, from the Hebrew learning of prospective clergy in the colonial era, to today’s vibrant intersectional field for grads and undergrads. As Judith R. Baskin, the Philip H. Knight Professor Emerita in Humanities at the University of Oregon, wrote in…
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