
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.
Radio host Leonard Lopate has found a new home—but not all of his neighbors are happy to have him. Lopate, who was suspended and later terminated by WNYC last December after allegations of “inappropriate conduct,” launched his maiden show on the Brooklyn-based station, WBAI on July 16th, 2018 the Columbia Journalism Review reports. The show,…
In 1987, Marcello Saloman Imach, a 22-year-old swimming instructor stepped into a gym in Buenos Aires, stamped his feet and did something his Jewish mother could never have imagined. He started sumo wrestling. Sumo is Japan’s national sport, wherein two, overweight and underclad fighters (rikishi) try to force each other out of a ring or…
Bess Myerson, the first and only Jewish Miss America and, later, a power player in New York politics, was born on July 16, 1924. Myerson, a figure of glamour and, eventually, scandal, was a sign of changing times. Her coronation as Miss America came in September, 1945, only a few days after V.J. Day, the…
With its 2-1 victory over England, Croatia has secured its place in the World Cup final, squaring off against France for the coveted cup this Sunday. So, who should Jews root for in the final match? To answer this question, we need to look at the countries’ records, not in soccer, but with the Jews….
Pepe the Frog, the unwitting mascot of the so-called alt-right, is on the fast track to bettering his personal brand. Motherboard reports that the legal team of Pepe’s creator, Matt Furie, has successfully petitioned neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer to take down Pepe’s unlicensed image. The removal marked a victory for the web-footed innocent who’s…
Since Steven Moffat re-imagined Sherlock Holmes as a self-described “high-functioning sociopath,” prestige mysteries have been having a love affair with psychology. So it’s only natural that the father of psychoanalysis would find his way into the genre. Netflix has announced it’s taking on the Austrian thriller “Freud” which will follow a young Siggy through his…
Towards the end of his career, Stanley Kubrick began presenting some of the less attractive qualities of a genius. His hygiene became dubious, he was famously gruff with reporters, allegedly abusive to his actors and notoriously gnomic when it came to interpretations of his work. So a recently unearthed clip of him explaining one of…
Thanks in no small part to J.D. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey,” radio show whiz kids have long held a special spot in the Jewish-American imagination. But it may surprise some that the real world purpose of “Quiz Kids,” a 1940s trivia show, was to promote Jewish intelligence during a time when Jewish lives were most…
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