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 Watch out, Hamilton. Janet Yellen’s coming for your hip-hop cred
Newly-minted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is already a less problematic fave than Alexander Hamilton, an adulterer, elitist social climber and — despite Lin-Manuel Miranda’s protestations — a possible slave owner. But does a song about her slap? We now know: Yes. About a week ago, Marketplace, inspired by an off-handed remark from Joe Biden, asked…
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Culture If you can guess how HBO’s ‘Possessions’ ends, I’m scared of you
I’m reasonably confident you won’t be quick to solve the murder mystery at the heart of “Possessions.” If you do work out the exact whys and wherefores — before, say, episode four of six — I’m more than a bit worried about you. Debuting on HBO Max on Thursday, the French and Hebrew language thriller…
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Art An artist in exile talks Tu B’Shvat tarot and working from her childhood home
During the pandemic, Jessica Tamar Deutsch has been considering exile as she relearns how to paint. Specifically, she’s been thinking about the title character in “The Lost Princess,” a story by Rabbi Nachman, the mystic founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, about a young woman who disappears from her home after displeasing her kingly father….
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Culture A 1939 satire critiques shtetl life — before it disappeared forever
Depictions of shtetl life — with their pogroms, close knit community and at times provincial ways — invite nostalgia and criticism all at once. Many of the shtetls’ most famous chroniclers in fiction were also moralists of the old world, critiquing the pieties and superstitions of the Pale of Settlement, often from the safe distance…
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Culture Schumer in for a hard time after calling out Trump’s ‘erection’
Chuck Schumer has been the Senate majority leader for less than a week and already his oratory has risen to our attention. Taking to the Senate floor on Jan. 22, Schumer pushed for the prosecution of ex-President Trump, saying “There will be a trial, and when the trial ends, Senators will have to decide if…
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The Schmooze Seth Rogen calls Ted Cruz a fascist — and something much worse
Say what you will about Ted Cruz, he is a senator uniquely enamored of — and despised by — Hollywood. The guy quotes entire scenes from “The Princess Bride” to the discomfort of all around him, and to the chagrin of its star, Mandy Patinkin. Former Senator Al Franken said the two got along OK…
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Archive When the Forward was in the vaccine business
In April of 1947, readers of this publication flocked en masse to our building at 175 E. Broadway, rolled up their sleeves, and got stuck with a vaccine. The scene, replete with bespectacled gents, women in house dresses and young children, was part of something bigger: a rapid, mass vaccination against smallpox. By the time…
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Culture Biden cites Psalms and a songwriter of Jewish themes at inauguration
Joseph R. Biden, Jr. began his presidency with a speech urging American unity as we move forward through a dark season of disease and uncertainty. In his address, he cited both Scripture and an operatic anthem penned by a songwriter known for works based on the lives of Holocaust survivors. Following a benediction by Father…
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Music In 1964, when he was just 23, Bob Dylan wrote the prophetic anthem that encapsulates Trump’s America
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Film & TV Mikey Madison is Jewish — is ‘Anora’?
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Fast Forward What does the election of Mark Carney mean for Canadian Jews and Israel?
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Fast Forward ‘Darkness will fade,’ Yuval Raphael sings in Israel’s Eurovision entry, ‘New Day Will Rise’
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Books Two middle-aged women defied the Nazis. One ‘wrote’ a book that betrayed the other.
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