
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
Like the fierce women she committed to the screen, the young Nelly Kaplan was a risk-taker, unafraid to break barriers, or, for that matter, marriages. The Argentinian-born director arrived in France in 1953. She was 22, didn’t speak a word of French and had a meager $50 to her name, but within two years she…
Lazar Wolf is a creation of the great Yiddish fiction writer Sholem Aleichem. He is Anatevka’s village butcher. In “Fiddler on the Roof,” the 1964 musical treatment of Aleichem’s Tevye the Milk Man stories, Wolf is best remembered for being a wealthy older suitor to Tevye’s daughter Tzeitel. He doesn’t end up marrying her (Motel…
David Phillips and Evan Susser started their podcast, “Deli Boys,” with a simple mission: Rank the 14 Jewish delis in Los Angeles. They underestimated the impact their endeavor would wreak on the restaurant industry. “We started doing this podcast and the craziest thing happened,” Susser, a screenwriter whose credits include the 2017 comedy “Fist Fight,”…
Two writers from the Forward are finalists for awards from the Deadline Club, the New York City chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Club announced Monday. Deputy Culture Editor Talya Zax was one of three journalists nominated in the category of Arts Reporting for her December 2018 cover story, “Men Explain Anne Frank…
The superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia has publicly apologized for a student drawing that many deemed anti-Semitic. The picture, displayed at Northern Virginia Community College’s Annandale campus between February 14 and March 14, was one of eight drawings made by a 17-year-old high school student as part of a series titled “Racial…
Amazon Studios responded to Woody Allen’s $68 million breach of contract lawsuit Wednesday night, claiming his public comments about #MeToo justified the termination of their deal. In February, Allen sued the e-store’s film division, claiming they had improperly broken their agreement based on an allegation by his daughter Dylan Farrow that Allen molested her in…
The weathered words on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty endure to this day, even though most immigrants no longer encounter them on their journey. But the sonnet “The New Colossus,” written by Emma Lazarus, is only the poet’s most visible contribution to literature. This year, the American Jewish Historical Society, the steward of…
On April 1, 1939, Hitler was in a very bad mood. The previous day the Führer had learned that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had grown something resembling a spine. After reversing Britain’s policy of appeasement on March 15, following Hitler’s seizure of Czechoslovakia, on March 31 Chamberlain made a pledge of Anglo-French support to…
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