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 Jews plead, once again: Listen to the lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’
Another state occasion, another misuse of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Across the internet, fans of the poet are pleading: Stop the madness! On Jan. 19, 2021, before the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial, gospel singer Yolanda Adams concluded a somber memorial to the over 400,000 Americans dead of Covid-19 with Cohen’s storied song of sex…
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Culture What are the most (and least) Jewish inauguration speeches ever?
On Jan. 20, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will deliver the 59th inaugural address, a tradition that began with George Washington, was denied to a handful of presidential replacements and — I’ve learned through a thorough study of the 58 other speeches — one that, like a particularly long Yom Kippur sermon, is given to a…
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Culture Black Jews, he says, ‘get traumatized twice.’ To cope, he painted their experience.
Editor’s note: In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Forward is resurfacing some of our recent coverage related to the Black-Jewish experience and racial justice. This article originally appeared in June, 2020. “I am tired of talking,” said MaNishtana, the writer, Orthodox rabbi and artist behind two striking images that capture the Black…
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Culture In the 1920s, a Black cantor moved the world
Editor’s note: In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Forward is resurfacing some of our recent coverage related to the Black-Jewish experience and racial justice. This article originally appeared in July, 2020. In June, Henry Sapoznik was scrolling through Facebook when he saw something he’d been seeking for mpre than 40 years: a…
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Culture What was Captain America doing on Trump rioters’ shirts – and what would Cap think?
Neal Kirby, the son of Captain America co-creator Jack Kirby condemned the Capitol insurrectionists for wielding symbols of his father’s iconic hero in support of President Trump, a man he says holds vastly different values. “While watching the horrific videos of the storming of the Capitol, I thought I noticed someone in a Trump/Capt. America…
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Culture In one of Norway’s first Holocaust films, a fairy tale free of consequence
Movies with Nazis tend to stick to a select few country codes. Hollywood has established the Reich’s presence in France, Eastern Europe and Austria and the Sudetenland and, naturally, Germany. Norway has been mostly missing from the picture, but it shouldn’t be. After all, the country’s wartime leader, Vidkun Quisling, was such an infamous Nazi…
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Culture As Trump faces 2nd impeachment, a history of incitement
Donald J. Trump made history on Wednesday as the first president to be impeached twice. After four years — and several decades – of saying whatever he wants, it will be a matter of speech that lands the final blow. He is charged with incitement of insurrection for spurring on the mob that stormed the…
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Culture Why is everybody talking about Kristallnacht?
A right-wing pundit, a congressman with white nationalist sympathies and an action star-turned-governor of California have all made public analogies to Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, in the last 24 hours. Are any of them right? In a Jan. 10 video, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on…
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