PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar
By PJ Grisar
-
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…
-
Culture ‘The shame stayed with me.’ How a bullying incident from 1965 became an Oscar nominee.
Sadly, it could have been any day in fifth grade. A kid got the whole class in trouble, so the whole class retaliated, piling onto him outside of the school. Some spat, some hit – taking turns until the principal and teacher broke it up. Jay Rosenblatt had largely forgotten the specifics of why he…
-
Culture In Zelenskyy’s Mordechai-like Purim plea, Biden is as uneasy as Esther
Centuries ago, in a story we tell each year on this night, a plea was made to someone with access to power, but who faced no small risk. “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace,” Mordechai, a Jew living in Persia told…
-
Culture In a delightful new Purim film, Esther is a secret agent in Argentina
In its long history, the Purim story has had its fair share of reboots. Because, in every generation, a new Haman arrives to oppress us, that genocidal adviser has worn the face of Hitler and, when Stalin suffered a stroke on Purim, averting his own dire plans for Jews, he wore a different mustache entirely….
-
Culture Barry Manilow on dueling cantors, Levy’s Rye and his musical’s New York debut
Barry Manilow never meant to become a pop star, and his Grammy, Emmy and Tony-winning career as a songwriter is a source of perennial tsuris for his lyric-writing partner Bruce Sussman. If you ask them, “Mandy” came, gave and (forget what you heard) did some taking. That breakout hit diverted the pair’s original ambition: writing…
-
Culture What would Otto Frank tell Anne about Charlottesville? A new play tells us.
Roger Guenveur Smith had been meaning to play Anne Frank’s father for some time – but first he had to embody someone quite different. “I was finally ready to really dive into the archives, and lo and behold, we lost Rodney King,” said Smith, who performed a one-man show as King, the Black victim of…
-
Culture How a radio pioneer named Steve Post set the stage for Howard Stern and Marc Maron
The best part of “Playing in the FM Band,” a new documentary about revolutionary radio personality Steve Post, finds our hero trapped in the bathroom of WNYC. “In the instant before my flesh made contact with the seat, I realized that I was clutching a cold, metal object in my right hand,” Post says in…
-
Culture Can a Christian theater company put on a good Purim spiel?
I learned about "Queen Esther" from a TV ad. How could I resist going?
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 Musk falsely accuses Jewish former ambassador suing DOGE of heading ‘crime family’
-
Film & TV ‘No Other Land’ just won an Oscar — how can American audiences see it?
-
Fast Forward Elise Stefanik booed at ADL conference for saying Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened under Trump
-
Film & TV In a transcendent new TV series, a memorable group of misfits struggles on the margins of Tel Aviv
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
