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How a Jewish schoolteacher from New Jersey made it to Hollywood and Broadway at the same time
Robert Kaplow, a retired high school English teacher, has been publishing a monthly newsletter in Metuchen, a small New Jersey town a few miles southwest of Menlo Park, where Thomas Edison set up his laboratory. Kaplow can’t match Edison’s thousand plus patents but the 71-year-old writer has had an impressive creative output. Over the years, he’s churned out a play, a screenplay, nine novels and hours of radio comedy that gained a cult following on NPR.
One of his novels, Me and Orson Welles, was turned into a motion picture. His screenplay, Blue Moon, began life as a monologue and tackles the tragic end of lyricist Lorenz Hart’s life. Kaplow worked on Blue Moon over the course of 14 years.
The film, directed by Richard Linklater, presents the unraveling of Hart’s musical theater career and serves up a glimpse of his sad personal life. Hart was gay but he wasn’t completely comfortable with his sexual identity. Based on actual correspondence that Kaplow bought at an estate sale, the screenplay presents the lyricist as a man infatuated with a college woman half his age. The movie opens with two quotes about Hart in an epigraph. The first describes the lyricist as “alert and alive and fun to be with.” The second refers to him as “the saddest man I ever knew.”
‘An extraordinary teacher’
Kaplow taught English and film at Summit High School in New Jersey for 34 years.
“He was an extraordinary teacher,” said Sally Ball, who was a high school student of Kaplow’s in the mid-1980’s and is now a published poet and an English professor at Arizona State University. “He lived the life of a writer. He really made a literary life seem like a living thing to me.”
Kaplow scored autographed pictures for his high school students of the actor Zac Efron, who starred in Me and Orson Welles. The 2004 novel was turned into a feature film by Linklater. Set in the 1930’s, it told the story of a New Jersey high school student who manages to snag a role in Welles’ groundbreaking production of Julius Caesar.
While he was teaching, Kaplow also made a mark in public radio with his alter ego, a comedic character named Moe Moskowitz. The wisecracking, loud-mouthed Moskowitz was the polar opposite of his soft-spoken creator. Billed as “America’s favorite entrepreneur,” Moskowitz brightened the airwaves on Morning Edition with wacky ideas and get-rich-quick schemes.
A gorilla comedian
Kaplow’s first foray into comedy and drama took place when he was ten. Encouraged by his father Jerome, he donned a full-face gorilla mask and casually looked out the window of the family sedan on the drive to the beach. The sight of the little gorilla in the backseat caused the occupants of other cars to do a double-take, which was often followed by an explosion of laughter.
That comedic impulse showed no sign of abating during his adolescence. On the first page of his prayer book, a Reform siddur, Kaplow provided a divine inscription: “Bob – Best of luck in the future (as if I didn’t know!) – God.”
In high school Kaplow and his friends, inspired by the trippy, multi-track comedy of Firesign Theater, wrote, performed and recorded what he called “little satirical theater pieces.”
When Kaplow attended Rutgers University, he spent most of his time in a band called The Punsters, which produced a weekly radio program of the same name. It featured a half-hour of original comedy, some of which Kaplow would eventually recycle for NPR.
‘The only prayer I know’
At family gatherings, Kaplow’s father, a car salesman, was always the life of the party. At the local White Castle where the counter women were Haitian, Jerome Kaplow would pretend he was a native French speaker when he ordered. And he performed cameos on his son’s radio comedy segments on NPR. When Jerome went to the hospital for an echocardiogram and a technician asked what he did for a living, the elder Kaplow replied: “I’m retired, but I used to be in show business.”
“My father had an ironic, absurdist sense of humor,” Kaplow told me. “I picked up so much from him.”
Jerome lived to 94, deriving much of his sustenance from Milky Way candy bars and gefilte fish, according to his son. Even when he could barely walk, Jerome insisted on going to shul on the High Holy Holidays.
“My father didn’t attend services because he was deeply religious,” Kaplow explained. “He attended because his father was deeply religious — and he felt the need to honor his father’s convictions.”
Religious observance seems to have declined with each generation of the Kaplow family but Robert Kaplow told me he does regularly go to the cemetery to place stones on the graves of his grandparents, mother, father and sister.
“Sometimes I mutter Shema Yisrael,” he told me. “It’s the only prayer I know.”
‘Kaplow’s gift’
When Kaplow was with The Punsters, they recorded a song titled “I Dreamt I Dreamt of Gefilte Fish,” in which Kaplow mimicked Bob Dylan singing about eating nothing but gefilte fish. In the 70-second ditty “Batman’s Going to a Bat-Mitzvah,” the caped crusader, we learn, is going to chow down on “rugelach and arugula.” A Moskowitz Home Companion,” Kaplow’s parody of A Prairie Home Companion, was sponsored by the fictional “Moskowitz’s Frozen Knishes.”
Kaplow says he was fired from NPR three times — first because Moe Moskowitz was deemed to be a Jewish stereotype, second, according to veteran Morning Edition producer Barry Gordemer, because “some people in the building didn’t think Moe was funny,” and lastly because Kaplow used the network’s logo without permission on a self-produced CD of his Morning Edition comedy segments. You can still find that CD (Cancel My Subscription: The Worst of NPR) on YouTube.
Jay Kernis, Morning Edition’s founding producer, was in Washington, D.C. when Kaplow was being interviewed about the song he sent in, “Steven Spielberg, Give Me Some of Your Money.” Out of the blue, Kaplan started talking in his Moe Moskowitz voice. Kernis called the control room in New York when the interview had concluded and asked Kaplow if he wanted to contribute original comedy to Morning Edition on a regular basis.
Kernis noted that back in the days when NPR aired original comedy and commentary on its newsmagazines, contributors tended to last a couple of years. Then, he said, either NPR producers or the audience grew tired of them. Kaplow lasted 17 years.
“Robert was inventive and he was funny,” Kernis told me. “He was a great performer and a great sound producer.”
“Moe Moskowitz always made me laugh, but also sometimes put a catch into my throat,” Weekend Edition host Scott Simon wrote in a text. “Robert has a gift — an art, really — for putting character into what might otherwise seem a caricature.”
‘An old-fashioned human being’
Kaplow and Richard Linklater kept in touch after Me and Orson Welles had its theatrical run in 2008. When Kaplow mentioned that he had written a monologue about Rodgers and Hart, Linklater asked to read it and, afterwards, shared it with the actor Ethan Hawke, who he tapped to play Lorenz Hart.
Kaplow completed the first draft of the Blue Moon screenplay in the Summer of 2011. In the ensuing years Linklater and Hawke worked with Kaplow on revising it, right up to and during the shoot last summer in Ireland where Kaplow joined them on set.
“We were a good band together,” Hawke told me.
The film takes place on one night in 1943 at Sardi’s, the theater district restaurant, as Hart’s songwriting partner Richard Rodgers basks in the opening night raves of Oklahoma!, Rodgers’ first collaboration with his new writing partner Oscar Hammerstein II.
Hart was struggling with alcoholism and depression during the time the film depicts. He died eight months after the Oklahoma! opening at the age of 48.
“It is hard for us to look at people in pain,” Hawke told me. “People in pain often behave badly, so they’re unlikable. But we have all been that person. We’ve all struggled with the green-headed monster of jealousy. We’ve all been worried that our best days are behind us.”
Linklater said one of the triumphs of Kaplow’s screenplay is that it managed to convey empathy for Lorenz Hart.
“I’m proud that 82 years later we’re honoring him and his contribution to our world,” Linklater said of the lyricist. “There’s no one else like him.”
Hawke described Robert Kaplow as “an old-fashioned human being,” which isn’t surprising given Kaplow’s love of the American songbook, especially its golden age. When he was in his 20’s, Kaplow was so enamored of the Tin Pan Alley era that he wanted to write music for theater.
“When you look at the songwriters of the 1930s and 40s, with the exception of Cole Porter, they’re almost all Jewish,” Kaplow told me. “Rodgers and Hart, Kern, Arlen, Julie Styne and Sammy Cahn. I don’t have an explanation for why, but I feel a little bit like I’m part of that. Whatever that cultural DNA is, I have a little of that.”
The post How a Jewish schoolteacher from New Jersey made it to Hollywood and Broadway at the same time appeared first on The Forward.
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California College Employee Calling Jewish Professor ‘Colonizer’ Was Antisemitic, Investigation Finds
Sign reading “Welcome to City College of San Francisco” above glass entry doors with building number 88, San Francisco, California, Aug. 29, 2025. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A City College of San Francisco (CCSF) staff member who called a Jewish professor a “colonizer” among other verbal attacks engaged in unlawful harassment and discrimination based on the academic’s Jewish identity, according to an independent investigation into the incident.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Center, two Jewish advocacy groups, on Tuesday celebrated the upholding of a disciplinary investigation’s finding as a “significant victory” for Jewish faculty and students.
“The outcome establishes a critical precedent for how universities must evaluate conduct often mischaracterized as political speech but that, in context, targets Jewish identity,” the groups said in a statement.
The investigation stemmed from a series of incidents which escalated to an explosive May 2025 confrontation in which CCSF employee Maria Salazar-Colon, president of the local Service Employees International Union (SEIU) union, allegedly launched a volley of anti-Jewish invective at computer science professor Abigail Bornstein. Calling Bornstein a “colonizer” and telling her to “shut the f—k up,” Salazar-Colon converted the professor’s name into a sobriquet by denouncing her as “Dumb-stein” during the public comment portion in a meeting of the community college’s board of trustees, according to the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs.
That utterance, combined with other comments related to Israel, indicated Salazar-Colon’s awareness of Bornstein’s Jewishness and her willingness to degrade her over it, the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs said — noting that a trivial discussion on college “governance,” not politics or the Middle East conflict, set the staff member off.
Salazar-Colon allegedly continued targeting Bornstein through email, denouncing her again as a “colonizer” and making other crude statements. The conduct drove the professor off campus. She reported the alleged harassment to the CCSF administration and filed a criminal complaint with the local police.
However, Salazar-Colon hit back, filing her own grievance in response to allege that she was the victim. Meanwhile, the college hired a law firm as a third-party investigator to look into the matter. Its findings were conclusive, determining not only that Salazar-Colon was fully culpable but that her conduct, rising to “workplace violence,” was intentionally discriminatory against a Jewish colleague.
CCSF ultimately dismissed Salazar-Colon’s “retaliatory” complaint, but the finality of its decision hung on the opinion of the college trustees. Salazar-Colon filed an appeal with the body. It took no action, crystallizing, the Brandeis Center and StandWithUs said, a consensus on the “seriousness of the underlying conduct and the strength of support for the [third-party investigator’s] findings.”
On Monday, Brandeis Center staff litigation attorney Deena Margolies told The Algemeiner that, in this case, justice prevailed but that many other Jewish members of academia suffer similar indignities.
“The college did the right thing here. They brought in an independent investigator. They made clear that this was about discrimination based on Bornstein’s protected identity, that being Jewish — not union advocacy — and that’s important and a necessary distinction that we don’t often see being recognized,” Margolies said. “I’m seeing many more of these disciplinary matters in the employee context, and I notice that what often happens is that when a Jewish professor or staff member is targeted or files a complaint, there is often a cross complaint, a baseless complaint which is retaliatory. And yet, they always end up coming through.”
CCSF will be taking disciplinary action. against Salazar-Colon.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, antisemitism promoted by university employees often disguises itself as politics, complicating higher education institutions’ response to it.
In September, a survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Academic Engagement Network (AEN) found that staff and faculty accelerated the “antisemitism” crisis on US college campuses by politicizing the classroom, promoting anti-Israel bias, and even discriminating against Jewish colleagues. It found that 73 percent of Jewish faculty witnessed their colleagues engaging in antisemitic activity, and a significant percentage named the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) group as the force driving it.
Of those aware of an FSJP chapter on their campus, the vast majority of respondents reported that the chapter engaged in anti-Israel programming (77.2 percent), organized anti-Israel protests and demonstrations (79.4 percent), and endorsed anti-Israel divestment campaigns (84.8 percent). Additionally, 50 percent of respondents said that anti-Zionist faculty have established de facto, or “shadow,” boycotts of Israel on campus even in the absence of formal declaration or recognition of one by the administration. Among those who reported the presence of such a boycott, 55 percent noted that departments avoid co-sponsoring events with Jewish or pro-Israel groups and 29.5 percent said this policy is also subtly enacted by sabotaging negotiations for partnerships with Israeli institutions. All the while, such faculty fostered an environment in which Jewish professors were “maligned, professionally isolated, and in severe cases, doxxed or harassed” as they assumed the right to determine for their Jewish colleagues what constitutes antisemitism.
Administrative officials responded inconsistently to antisemitic hatred, affording additional rationale to the downstream of hatred. More than half (53.1 percent) of respondents described their university’s response to incidents involving antisemitism or anti-Israel bias as “very” or “somewhat” unhelpful, and a striking 77.3 percent thought the same of their professional academic associations. In totality, alleged faculty misconduct and administrative dereliction combined to degrade the professional experiences of Jewish professors, as many reported “worsening mental and physical health, increased self-censorship, fear for personal safety,” and a sense that the destruction of their careers and reputations was imminent.
“Antisemitism cannot and should not be downplayed as political, academic, or workplace disagreement. Antisemitism is, clearly and concretely, insidious discrimination,” Brandeis Center chairman Kenneth Marcus, a former US assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said in a statement released with the news of the outcome of the CCSF incident. “Institutions have both the authority and the obligation to intervene, and we are hopeful that these outcomes encourage those who wish to report incidents of antisemitism to come forward without fear of retaliation.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Turkish Intel Chief Hosts Hamas Leaders as New Report Warns of Turkey’s Ties to Muslim Brotherhood
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a ceremony for the handover of new vehicles to the gendarmerie and police forces in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Turkey’s extensive ties with Hamas and other terrorist groups and Islamist movements are raising alarm bells among analysts, highlighting Ankara’s controversial pivot away from its traditional Western alliances amid ongoing regional conflicts.
This week, Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalın met in Ankara with Khalil Al-Khaya, a senior Hamas negotiator, and the terrorist group’s political bureau delegation to discuss prospects for advancing the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire — marking the second such meeting in under two weeks.
Last week, Kalın also met with senior Hamas leaders in Istanbul, underscoring Turkey’s ongoing diplomatic engagement with the Islamist group.
Notably absent from both meetings’ public summaries was any mention of Hamas’s disarmament — a key condition of the US-backed peace plan, which the terrorist group continues to reject, further complicating ceasefire efforts.
Earlier this year, the US-backed plan to end the war in Gaza hit major roadblocks after proposals surfaced that would allow Hamas to retain some small arms — an idea strongly denounced by Israeli officials who insist the Islamist group must fully disarm.
Israel has previously warned that Hamas must give up its weapons for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the terrorist group’s control.
Last week, US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” reportedly presented a disarmament plan to Hamas that would require the terrorist group to allow the destruction of its vast Gaza tunnel network as it lays down its arms in stages over eight months. Palestinian officials indicated Hamas would not accept the proposal without “amendments and improvements.”
Under Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, phase two would involve deploying an international stabilization force (ISF), beginning large-scale reconstruction, and establishing a Palestinian technocratic committee to oversee the territory’s administration.
Conditioned on Hamas’s disarmament, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would also withdraw from the approximately 53 percent of the enclave they currently occupy.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Turkey has repeatedly tried to position itself as a regional mediator, maintaining direct intelligence channels with Hamas to advance ceasefire talks and solidifying its role in US-backed diplomatic efforts.
However, Turkey has also been a long-time backer of Hamas, hosting senior officials multiple times over the years and refusing to designate the group as a terrorist organization. Ankara has also provided Hamas with both political and financial support by allowing its leadership to operate networks from Turkish soil.
Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Hamas operatives of using Turkey as a base for recruitment, financing, and operational coordination.
On Monday, Israeli intelligence services uncovered a Hamas terror network in the West Bank, directed by an operative based in Turkey, revealing ongoing coordination between the group’s cells abroad and on the ground.
According to Sinan Ciddi, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Turkey’s high-level meetings with Hamas and growing engagement in Gaza reflect a stark gap between its public diplomacy and private dealings, revealing a calculated effort to maintain influence in the region.
“Publicly, Turkey has presented itself as a diplomatic broker seeking a ceasefire. Privately, its continued high-level engagement with Hamas, particularly through intelligence channels, signals an enduring political alignment and a willingness to preserve the group as a relevant actor in postwar Gaza,” Ciddi wrote in a newly released report.
“Ankara’s maintenance of access to Hamas leadership is likely intended to help ensure Turkey retains influence over any future political settlement,” he continued.
Israel has consistently opposed any role for Turkish security forces in postwar Gaza, with Ankara seeking to expand its regional influence — a move experts warn could strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
Amid growing concerns over Turkey’s regional influence, a newly released FDD report underscored the country’s pivot under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from its traditional Western alignment toward closer ties with Islamist movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood.
The report identified Turkey as a key refuge for Muslim Brotherhood leaders from across the region, including Egypt and Yemen, a role that has intensified after many fled their home countries amid government crackdowns.
For years, the Muslim Brotherhood has faced bans or restrictions across the Middle East, with some European countries and the United States recently designating the group or specific branches as terrorist organization.
“There is an established track record … where Turkey significantly undermines the transatlantic alliance’s core security concerns,” Ciddi said.
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US Appeals Court Reinstates $655M Ruling Against Palestinian Authorities Over Terrorism
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looks on as he visits the Istishari Cancer Center in Ramallah, in the West Bank, May 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Torokman
A US federal appeals court on Monday reinstated a whopping $655.5 million judgment against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA), delivering a major legal victory for American victims seeking to hold the groups responsible for the notorious “pay-for-slay” terrorism program.
The ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit restored a jury’s earlier finding that the PLO and PA bore civil liability under the Anti-Terrorism Act for a series of attacks in Israel that killed and injured US citizens.
In its opinion, the court recalled its previous mandate vacating the initial decision, writing that doing so was warranted by “intervening changes in underlying law” and the need to prevent an unjust outcome after years of litigation. The panel emphasized that appellate courts retained the authority to revisit earlier decisions in “extraordinary circumstances,” a standard it found satisfied in this case.
The judges also addressed the issue of jurisdiction, which had previously served as an obstacle in the case.
In 2023, a federal appeals court ruled that US courts did not have the authority to hear certain lawsuits against the PLO and the PA stemming from terrorist attacks abroad that killed or injured American citizens. In a decision issued by Second Circuit court, the panel concluded that Congress could not compel foreign defendants to face litigation in US courts without sufficient ties to the country, dealing a significant setback to victims seeking damages through American legal channels.
But the court signaled that subsequent legal developments from the Supreme Court and evolving interpretations of the Anti-Terrorism Act altered the analysis enough to justify reinstating the judgment.
At the center of the case was the Anti-Terrorism Act’s provision allowing US nationals to seek civil damages for acts of international terrorism. A jury had originally awarded damages to victims and their families, finding a link between the alleged terrorists and attacks targeting civilians. Those damages resulted in the mandated enforcement of the more than $650 million judgment.
For victims’ families and advocates, the decision marked a significant step toward enforcing consequences against groups accused of supporting or incentivizing violence.
Supporters have argued that lawsuits play a critical role in deterring terrorism, particularly when criminal prosecution is not possible. By reinstating the judgment, the court appeared to endorse the broader principle that US law can serve as a tool of accountability, even in cases involving foreign actors and overseas attacks.
The court cautioned that enforcement presents a distinct set of legal and practical challenges. It pointed to potential obstacles including asset location, sovereign protections, and the complexities of executing judgments against foreign entities.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-governance in the West Bank and has long been riddled with accusations of corruption, has for years carried out a so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
Under this policy, official payments are made to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs” killed in attacks on Israelis, and Palestinians injured in terrorist attacks.
Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget has been allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
Skeptics suggest the hurdles in seeking financial retribution from the PLO and PA could prove substantial. The PLO and PA maintain limited assets within the US, and some may be protected from seizure. Efforts to enforce the judgment could also raise sensitive diplomatic concerns, particularly given the entities’ role in international negotiations and governance.
The case is likely to have far-reaching implications for future terrorism litigation, particularly as Congress continues to explore ways to expand the reach of US courts in holding foreign actors accountable.