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 How Four Women Told The World About The Nazis’ Medical Experiments
In January of 1943, four Polish political prisoners in Ravensbrück, a women-only Nazi concentration camp in northern Germany, wrote letters to their families. Inmates were allowed to write one letter per month, missives that the SS strictly censored. The four women escaped suspicion by banally describing life in the camps as pleasant. But in truth,…
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Culture How Hulu’s ‘Catch-22’ Lost The Spirit Of Joseph Heller’s Masterpiece
Everything you need to know about the Hulu adaptation of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” comes down to a scream. In the opening moments of the new six-part miniseries, which debuted on May 17, Captain John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott) pads down a runway, naked as the day he was born, with blood caked on his face. Behind…
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Culture Is ‘Catch-22’ About Joseph Heller’s Jewish Air Force Peer?
In spirit if not content, Joseph Heller’s World War II satire “Catch 22” (1961) is a very Jewish property. When Mike Nichols directed the 1970 film adaptation of the novel, he cast fellow Yid Alan Arkin as the lead character, Captain John Yossarian, a defiant air force officer who tries to end his flying days…
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Culture As Opioid Lawsuits Pile Up, Met Decides To Refuse Money From Sacklers
In a landmark development, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a decades-long connection to the Sackler family, the primary owners of Purdue Pharma, has decided to refuse future donations from family members connected to the business. The move follows the Met’s previously announced plan to reconsider its donor policy after a Massachusetts court…
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Fast Forward Stan Lee’s Former Business Manager Charged With Elder Abuse
On May 10, the Los Angeles Superior Court charged comic book legend Stan Lee’s former business manager and caretaker Keya Morgan with multiple accounts of elder abuse, including false imprisonment, forgery and fraud committed over the course of Morgan’s relationship with Lee. The court issued a $300,000 warrant for Morgan’s arrest, CNN reports. Morgan, a…
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Fast Forward Rahm Emanuel: Chicago ‘Did Not See Me As A Jewish Mayor. They Saw Me As A Mayor Who Was Jewish.’
Outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sounded off about anti-Semitism and his leadership style on a May 13 episode of “Chicago Tonight.” When asked by interviewer Paris Schutz if he believed anti-Semitism played a role for those who opposed his mayorship, Emanuel took a broad historical view. “A trope of anti-Semitism – the threat of anti-Semitism…
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Culture No Gefilte Here, But There’s Plenty Jewish At The First Academic Conference On Phish
Begining Friday, May 17, Oregon State University will host the first ever academic conference on the jam band Phish, a rock quartet formed at Vermont’s Goddard College and known for its virtuosic improvisation, legendary concerts and devoted following. One of the panels will be devoted exclusively to Phish and the Jews. What’s Jewish about Phish?…
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Culture Did Susan Sontag Write Her Ex-Husband’s Most Famous Book?
A new biography of Susan Sontag reveals that the late author’s first published book may well have been released under another name: That of her ex-husband. The sociologist Philip Rieff, whom Sontag married in 1950, launched his career with his 1959 book “Freud: The Mind of the Moralist.” (The book was released in the same…
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Yiddish עכטע חסידישע מעשׂיות, איבערגעזעצטע אױף פּױלישAuthentic Hasidic tales, translated into Polish
די אַנטאָלאָגיע ווערט באַגלייט מיט פֿילמעלעך, וווּ באַקאַנטע פּוילישע פּערזענלעכקײטן לײענען אָדער דערצײלן איבער די מעשׂיות.
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News This national park would honor a Jewish philanthropist — if Republicans get back on board
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Film & TV He saved dozens of kids in Auschwitz — he kept it a secret for nearly the rest of his life
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Looking Forward I’m probably going to be on the government’s list of Jews at UPenn
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