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 RIP to Jim Steinman, a wonderful, vampire-obsessed songwriter
Jim Steinman was the best kind of weird. The Grammy-winning songwriter, known for his epic rock compositions for Meat Loaf, Celine Dion and Bonnie Tyler, died Monday at the age of 73, TMZ was first to report. Steinman’s songs were unmistakable in their bravura, musical theater influence and vampiric subtext. Yes. “Total Eclipse of the…
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Culture ‘Let him fade into the woodwork’ — Madoff’s victims respond to his passing
Bernie Madoff is survived by his wife, Ruth — and the thousands of people whose lives he upended. The effect of the disgraced financier’s machinations rippled. Jewish non-profits reeled when the Ponzi scheme came tumbling down. Fortunes and more modest savings were lost, and so were the jobs of many who worked for Jewish institutions. Victims…
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Culture WATCH: An exclusive trailer for ‘Upheaval,’ the story of Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin’s legacy beggars belief. The former Prime Minister of Israel survived the Shoah and Soviet Gulags. He headed the Irgun, leading the British to label him a terrorist. His critics, including Jimmy Carter, believed him to be a war monger. And yet he won the Nobel Peace Prize, with Carter, for the Camp David…
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Culture When George Costanza lost it all to Bernie Madoff
It was more than a great idea. It was more than a couple million dollars. Of the many victims of Bernard L. Madoff, the Ponzi scheme mastermind who died in prison April 14, was a visionary entrepreneur: George Costanza, whose app, iToilet, directed its user via global positioning technology to the nearest acceptable public toilet…
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News A reader’s guide to the Forward’s coverage of Bernie Madoff
Say what you will about Bernie Madoff, he made news. Given that his crimes had an inordinate effect on the Jewish world, the Forward was at the frontlines of much of the coverage. Here is a guide to some of our reporting on the infamous financier, who died in prison April 14 at the age…
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Culture Tovah Feldshuh played RBG and Golda — now she wants to play her mom
Actor Tovah Feldshuh has spent the last two years channeling the ultimate baleboste: her mom, Lily. Born in 1911 on a dining room table in the Bronx, Lillian Kaplan (later to be Feldshuh) longed to “become vivid.” She developed an alter ego named Hortense, who lived glamorously, dancing the Charleston and wearing an edgy bob…
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Culture How Jewish songwriters wrote the love theme for Philip and Elizabeth
The Kennedys, thanks to Lerner and Loewe, will forever be associated with the English setting of Camelot. Their royal British counterparts chose “Oklahoma!” for their lifelong love theme. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, who died April 9 at the age of 99, had a special affinity for the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein,…
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Culture Documentarian Ric Burns on why there will never be another Oliver Sacks
Writer’s note: Ric Burns’ “Oliver Sacks: His Own Life” premieres on television April 9 as part of PBS’ “American Masters” series. Republished below is an interview with Burns, originally published Sept. 23, 2020. In 2015, shortly before he died at the age of 82, Oliver Sacks was eating from a Tupperware container of green Jell-O,…
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