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 Strange Saga Of The Fake Hitler Diaries That Sparked An International Scandal
In 1978, a handsome leather volume monogrammed with Adolf Hitler’s initials entered the collectors’ market. It would be the first of many. The books were diaries chronicling the Fuhrer’s life, often in banal detail. The New Yorker reported in 2013 that they included reflections on his bad breath and girlfriend Eva Braun’s false pregnancy. But,…
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Culture The Most Incredible Stories You Never Heard About Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini is the immortal alter ego of the late Hungarian-Jewish immigrant Ehrich Weiss, the son of a rabbi and an incomparable mama’s boy. Many of the marvels of Houdini’s life, due in part to his own self-mythologizing, are, likewise, so much hocus pocus. “Nobody created myths like him,” Joe Posnanski, the author of the…
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Culture Roman Polanski Accused Of 1975 Rape
New allegations of rape have emerged against fugitive director Roman Polanski, and Polanski is threatening legal action against the paper that ran the story. On November 8, the French publication Le Parisien ran a story in which French photographer and former actress Valentine Monnier claimed that she was raped by Polanski at his property in…
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Culture Woody Allen And Amazon Settle Breach Of Contract Lawsuit
Woody Allen and Amazon have agreed to a settlement in the $68 million breach of contract lawsuit the embattled filmmaker brought against the streaming and retail giant this past February. On Friday, Variety reports, lawyers for Allen and Amazon filed a joint notice dismissing the case. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Allen’s…
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Culture Evidence Of Human-Neanderthal Hybrids Found In Israeli Cave
Long before the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, early men and women were living in Eretz Yisrael. Newly-unearthed relics reveal that some of these people may have traveled great distances before settling there — and that some of them weren’t 100% human. Teeth found in the Manot Cave in Western Galilee show features of both Homo sapiens…
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Culture How Michael Bloomberg Keeps Reinventing Himself
Author’s Note: This interview originally ran on September 16, 2019. On Thursday, news broke that Michael Bloomberg was preparing to enter the 2020 presidential race. The businessman and former Republican mayor of New York (who will be running as a Democrat), has long been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s administration. In this article,…
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Culture The Third Reich’s Secret Expedition To Whale In Antarctica
Here’s a whale of a tale: In 1938, Hitler planned a covert expedition to Antarctica for the purposes of securing a direct supply line of whale fat. His reasons were both predictably martial and puzzlingly culinary in nature. Of all the political and social trends that preceded Hitler’s rise, one gastronomical development may come as…
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Culture In ‘Advocate,’ A Controversial Israeli Lawyer Makes Her Case Against The Occupation
In the closing minutes of “Advocate,” Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche’s documentary about Israeli attorney Lea Tsemel, the subject identifies herself. “Lea Tsemel,” she tells a reporter in English, “losing lawyer.” This descriptor is at once accurate, self-deprecating and overly modest. Tsemel did lose. She almost always does. But, then again, she almost always…
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