PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at [email protected] and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
PJ Grisar
By PJ Grisar
-
Culture Is Wonder Woman’s love interest a Dybbuk?
“Wonder Woman 1984” transports us to a simpler time of probable nuclear war, petroleum-fueled global conflicts and regrettable fashion. Does it also contain a Jewish clinging demon? Hear us out, but first, be warned, there are some plot spoilers ahead. In the follow-up to 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) reunites with her long-dead…
-
Culture Casting the inevitable Kushner family movie
Now that Donald Trump has pardoned Charles Kushner, many are just now hearing for the first time of the classic story of a real estate magnate who hired a sex worker to sleep with his brother-in-law and sent a tape of their tryst to his sister on the days before her son’s engagement party to…
-
Culture Meet the Orthodox Jewish Santa who trains America’s Christmas performers
Is it possible to be both a full time Santa and a full time Jew? Rick Rosenthal says yes
-
Culture Chinese food, movies, speed-dating — 5 Jewish things to do this Christmas.
Most Christmases, many Jews have their own inviolable traditions. For my family — and quite possibly yours — that means a movie (probably one that will be nominated for Oscars and be otherwise unmemorable) and Chinese food (a welcome consolation following dreck like “Benjamin Button”). Obviously this isn’t most Christmases. Yes, I’ve heard tell of…
-
Culture 21 totally on-point pop culture predictions for 2021
In 2019, save a few health and human services professionals, no one anticipated a new year gripped by a global pandemic. We were in the dark about Broadway dimming its lights and film projectors lying fallow. We couldn’t have imagined the Emmys being doled out by Hazmat-suited gofers. We might have expected the continuation of…
-
Culture Written during the Holocaust, a song finds a second life as a social justice anthem
A simple melody, straining upward and urging defiant silence, was composed at the Klooga work camp in Estonia in the 1940s. But for decades, scholars wondered who wrote the song, or how it even sounded. Starting a year after World War II ended, the words to “Lomir shvaygn” (“Stay Silent”) appeared in collections of songs…
-
The Schmooze WATCH: Gal Gadot tries eggnog; Jimmy Fallon gags at gefilte fish
On the fifth night of Hanukkah, Jimmy Fallon and Gal Gadot, in the spirit of interfaith exchange, foisted two seasonal acquired tastes on one another — we pity their palates. In this installment of the popular internet genre of “let’s watch this person eat some foreign food,” the “Wonder Woman 1984” star was given a…
-
Culture Why the mayor of Ramallah does it all
Musa Hadid, the middle-aged, mustachioed and overextended mayor of Ramallah is meeting with staff to discuss a Christmas tree lighting. Among the details to be ironed out: several Santas rappelling down buildings, a flash mob and zeppelins. Well, not really zeppelins. An aide suggests that this word sets up expectations that would be tough to…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Music In 1964, when he was just 23, Bob Dylan wrote the prophetic anthem that encapsulates Trump’s America
- 2
Fast Forward What does the election of Mark Carney mean for Canadian Jews and Israel?
- 3
News State Department plan to deport ‘pro-Hamas’ students relies on a 1952 law that targeted Jews
- 4
Opinion Trump’s treasury secretary is about to make a catastrophically bad move on Israel
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Debating a Jew, Trump supporters endorse America’s ‘European and Christian’ identity
-
News Meet the Jewish judge who ruled Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil should not be deported by ICE
-
Fast Forward The judge who blocked Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s deportation is an observant Jew
-
Fast Forward A growing number of Jewish groups are condemning Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
