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 Kafkaesque story of how Kafka’s “Trial” got cancelled
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include the Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s response to NYU Skirball’s statement that “The Trial” was cancelled due to its decision to withdraw funds. A stage adaptation of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” which was set to debut in New York at the NYU Skirball Center March 7, has been…
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Culture She was the first Jewish actor to win an Oscar
Each year, the Oscars are a who’s who of Jews. We are routinely represented in winners, losers, hosts and weird kissers (cough, cough Adrien Brody.) Too often, the awards go to boychiks. This year, with no women nominees for director (either Jewish or gentile), we wondered who was was the first Jewish woman to take…
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Culture OscarsSoBoring: What the nominees tell us about 2020
The first weeks of 2020 already feel like a retread of lowlights from years past. A calamitous environmental crisis, an impeachment trial and a teaser of a new, ill-advised war in the Middle East. And then there are the Oscar nominees. This year, like just about every year, shows an Academy unwilling to embrace new…
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Culture How a Jewish New Yorker documented Muslim life under Trump
A week into his presidency, Donald Trump made good on a campaign promise to block Muslims from entering the United States. With Executive Order 13769, the Trump administration suspended entry from seven Muslim-majority countries. But the travel ban didn’t just affect residents of those countries — it had sweeping implications for America’s 3.45 million Muslims,…
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Culture ‘Oh, my Gawd!’ Rachel Bloom and Fran Drescher are making a ‘The Nanny’ musical
It’s a tale (nearly) as old as time: A millionaire Broadway producer meets a bridal shop worker from Queens, hires her as a caretaker for his children, then eventually takes her to wife. Now, that classic story will become a stage musical. Yes, a Broadway treatment of hit 1990s sitcom“The Nanny” is forthcoming. As Deadline…
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Culture In 1960, Clifford Odets wrote his final film — for Elvis
Wise men say only fools rush in to a vanity film project for a singer of limited acting ability. That didn’t stop Clifford Odets, at least when it came to the King of Rock and Roll. The year was 1960, and the socialist playwright was entering his third and final decade working in film. His…
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Culture How Elizabeth Wurtzel, ‘Prozac Nation’ author and breast cancer advocate, shaped America
Elizabeth Wurtzel, whose bracingly candid memoirs brought attention to the deeply-rooted problems of addiction and depression in America, died in a Manhattan hospital on January 7. She was 52 years old. Wurtzel died as a result of leptomeningeal disease, a complication that occurs after cancer spreads to cerebrospinal fluid, her husband, Jim Freed, told The…
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Culture What ‘The Good Place’ says about Jewish ethics
This article contains spoilers for all four seasons of NBC’s “The Good Place.” Like many things in Judaism, notions of the afterlife can seem to be a jumble of competing interpretations. There’s no consensus as to what the life-to-come may look like, but one suggestion of heaven is the yeshiva shel ma’ala — or the…
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקערין וויווי לאַקס באַשרײַבט געשיכטע פֿון לאָנדאָנער ייִדישער פּרעסעVIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press
שבֿע צוקער פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס און ביידע לייענען פֿאָר עטלעכע פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון יענע צײַטן.
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Fast Forward Holocaust survivor event features a Rob Reiner video address — recorded just weeks before his death
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