PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar
By PJ Grisar
-
Culture Gilbert Gottfried, an iconic and inimitable comedic voice, dies at 67
Gilbert Gottfried, the onetime voice of the Aflac duck, the “Aladdin” parrot Iago and the filthiest roaster on any dais, has died at the age of 67. On the comedian’s Twitter page, Gottfried’s family announced that he had passed after a long illness. pic.twitter.com/STHhfpVSKU — Gilbert Gottfried (@RealGilbert) April 12, 2022 Known for his adenoidal…
-
Culture Moon Knight’s Star of David necklace was easy to miss. It was also a watershed moment for Marvel.
Amid a blur of hieroglyphs, ankhs and sarcophagi, it was easy to miss a more subtle symbol glinting from Oscar Isaac’s neck in last week’s installment of “Moon Knight.” Unless you happen to be Jewish and watching for signs of Jewish life. In the final minutes of the episode, Isaac’s Marc Spector wakes up in…
-
Culture Cartoonist Liana Finck on rewriting Genesis, God as a woman and why Abraham feels like a Philip Roth character
In Liana Finck’s Book of Genesis, Lilith is the Serpent, Joseph wears a merman tail and God is a woman. The New Yorker cartoonist’s latest graphic novel, “Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation,” envisages the Almighty as a work in progress. She is lonely, so She creates people. In a moment…
-
Culture Leonard Cohen changed Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Did it change him?
In October of 1973, Israel was fighting the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria and Leonard Cohen decided to visit. His exact reasons have long been a mystery. Hearing him clarify them, you may wish they’d stayed that way. In an unpublished manuscript, the 39-year-old poet wrote he “wanted to go fight and die…
-
Culture A stunning documentary recalls the many times Babyn Yar was forgotten
Sergei Loznitsa's "Babi Yar. Context," grapples with events many would rather not discuss
-
Culture It was the strangest Oscars in recent memory. Was it also the least Jewish?
The slap heard round the world stole the thunder of an evening that ended with an iconic moment of silent applause. And yet, it is the Flash’s shattering of the sound barrier that stays with me. The 94th Academy Awards featured, for the first time, an audience-polled segment ranking iconic sequences in film. As picked…
-
Fast Forward Synagogue bomb plotter fights for religious right to wield Thor’s hammer, compares it to Star of David
They say only the worthy can wield Thor’s hammer. Someone who planned to blow up a synagogue probably doesn’t meet that criteria. Richard Holzer, a Colorado man and professed neo-Nazi, sentenced to 20 years in prison for plotting to explode Temple Emanuel in Pueblo, Colo. is now under supervised release following a 2020 plea agreement….
-
Film & TV ‘WeCrashed’ is a live action cartoon of an Israeli CEO’s fall from grace
In the world of startups, WeWork’s Adam Neumann was a unicorn – the figurehead of a mythic, privately held company worth north of a billion dollars. In the world of Jews he was something just as legendary: 6’5”. Jared Leto – who plays Neumann in the new AppleTV+ show “WeCrashed,” the latest in a litany…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The Germans have a word for what’s happening in Trump’s America
- 2
News Why the ADL is encouraging Jews to invest in Tesla
- 3
News ‘Devastating’: What Germany’s election results mean for Jews
- 4
Opinion Students were expelled for protesting my Columbia class on Israel. Here’s what they taught me
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Adrien Brody wins best actor Oscar for ‘The Brutalist,’ his second for playing a Holocaust survivor
-
Fast Forward ‘No Other Land,’ about Israeli demolition of Palestinian village, wins Oscar for best documentary
-
Film & TV Oscars 2025: Hollywood crowns a new Jewish queen, and Israeli-Palestinian Best Documentary winners make waves
-
Fast Forward Steve Bannon, days after Nazi-like salute, tells Orthodox crowd: ‘I’m one of the most pro-Israel people out there’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
