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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’

Multi-hyphenate Robert Kaplow is a screenwriter, playwright, schoolteacher, and radio personality. Courtesy of Robert Kaplow

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.

Margaret Qualley and Ethan Hawke in a scene from ‘Blue Moon.’ Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

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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Iran Calls on Spain to Lead Sports Boycott Against Israel

Anti-Israel demonstrators release smoke in the colors of the Palestinian flag as they protest to condemn the Israeli forces’ interception of some of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla aiming to reach Gaza and break Israel’s naval blockade, in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Despite the ceasefire in Gaza taking effect, Iran is urging Spain to continue pushing for Israel’s suspension from international sports, as Madrid leads international efforts to boycott and isolate Jerusalem on the world stage.

In a letter to his Spanish counterpart, Iranian Minister of Sports and Youth Ahmad Donyamali praised Spain’s government for condemning “the genocide perpetrated by the Zionist regime in Gaza,” according to Iranian state-run media.

The Iranian official asked Spanish Minister for Education, Vocational Training, and Sports Pilar Alegría to lead efforts to build a global consensus to bar the Jewish state from international sports.

“Today, the world is faced with a serious challenge. The presence of the Zionist Regime of Israel as the biggest violator of international law in global sport arenas is undermining the credibility of sport values and principles,” Donyamali wrote in his letter.

“The continuation of such a situation turns sports, which should be the common language of nations for convergence, into a tool that serves to legitimize a system based on discrimination and apartheid,” the Iranian minister continued.

“Spain can play a significant role in global consensus to suspend the Israeli regime in sports,” he said.

Purportedly to protest the war in Gaza, both Iran — with its official policy of refusing to compete against Israeli athletes — and Spain are pushing efforts to boycott Israel, falsely accusing the Jewish state of genocide.

Last week, Israel and Hamas reached a US-backed ceasefire deal, ending a two-year conflict that began after the Palestinian terrorist group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has become one of Israel’s fiercest critics, a stance that has only intensified in recent months, coinciding with a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents targeting the local Jewish community — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has faced increasing backlash from his country’s political leaders and Jewish community, who accuse him of fueling antisemitic hostility. The Spanish government has also been a leading force in the anti-Israel sports boycott.

Last month, Sánchez called for Israel to be barred from international sports events after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the finale of the Vuelta cycling race in chaotic scenes in Madrid.

“The sports organizations should ask whether it’s ethical for Israel to continue participating in international competitions. Why was Russia expelled after invading Ukraine, yet Israel is not expelled after the invasion of Gaza?” Sánchez said while speaking to members of his Socialist Party.

“Until the barbarity ends, neither Russia nor Israel should be allowed to participate in any international competition,” the Spanish leader continued.

Spain has also announced that it will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates, citing the country’s military offensive against Hamas in the war-torn enclave.

Israeli officials have repeatedly criticized the Spanish government’s actions and remarks, accusing Madrid of antisemitism and of pursuing an escalating anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining the Jewish state internationally, as relations between the two countries continue to spiral downward.

This increased hostility comes as anti-Israel sentiment rises in Spain, with the local Jewish community being increasingly targeted.

On Wednesday, anti-Israel protesters clashed with local police in Barcelona and Valencia during a general strike in support of Gaza.

During the protest, roughly 15,000 people took part as some demonstrators set containers on fire and threw stones at businesses accused of supporting Israel.

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‘Just Too Many Examples’: Starmer Announces Antisemitism Review at UK’s National Health Service

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer reacts as he meets with Britain’s Defense Secretary John Healey (unseen) and Member of the House of Lords George Robertson (unseen) at 10 Downing Street, in London, on July 16, 2024. Photo: Benjamin Cremel/Pool via REUTERS

Following a series of episodes involving allegations of antisemitism in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), Prime Minister Keir Starmer revealed a new plan on Thursday to counter hate targeting Jews seeking medical care.

“There are just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively,” Starmer said in a statement. “We’ve already put in place management training in relation to the NHS, but I think we need a wider review, because in some cases, clear cases are simply not being dealt with, and so we need to get to the root of that.”

Starmer noted that John Mann, who serves in the House of Lords and as the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, would lead the review into the NHS’s handling of these cases.

“The NHS and the health sector pride themselves on being welcoming, inclusive, and professional in dealings with every one of us, as we are all patients at different times and in different ways throughout our entire life. Everyone in the country should be confident in these underlying principles at all times,” Mann said. “This review will look at the issues that can undermine the confidence of individuals when seeking or receiving health care.”

Mann stated that “ensuring that the systems and culture of regulation across the health service match, at all times, the universal principles and ethics that underpin our NHS will be the sole focus of this work.”

Wes Streeting, who serves as health and social care secretary, described his shock at the severity of the problem.

“The NHS should be there for all of us when we need it – regardless of income, race, or religion. Discrimination undermines everything our health service stands for, and undermines its ability to provide quality care,” Streeting said. “I have been appalled by recent incidents of antisemitism by NHS doctors, and I will not tolerate it. There can be no place in our NHS for doctors or staff continuing to practice after even persistently using antisemitic or hateful language.”

Streeting added that “patients put their lives in the hands of health-care professionals. They treat us at our most vulnerable. They therefore have a special responsibility to provide total comfort and confidence. I am grateful to Lord Mann for taking on this work. I expect his recommendations, and the action we are taking today, to help us enforce a zero-tolerance policy to racism in health care.”

One recent example of antisemitic sentiment in the United Kingdom’s medical sector manifested in the investigation into Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, under government review after making such statements as claiming the Royal Free Hospital in London was “a Jewish supremacy cesspit” and that “over 90% of the world’s Jews are genocidal.”

On Wednesday, The Daily Mail published a 30-second video clip of Aladwan saying that “the Palestinian people who are fighting for liberation – including armed struggle as per international law, right – are heroes, every single one of them. We are proud of our armed resistance and in Islam we call that ‘Jihad.’ That’s an honor. That’s how you defend your people.”

Another recent incident involved Dr. Ellen Kriesels, who works as a consultant pediatrician at Whittington Health NHS Trust and serves as clinical lead for community pediatrics. She has been suspended pending a formal inquiry, after the family of a disabled Jewish boy uncovered her long trail of antisemitic social media writings and expressed concern about her views influencing her treatment of patients.

The UK has seen similar controversies around antisemitism in health-care settings.

At University College London Hospitals (UCLH), posters appeared on walls with the claim that “Zionism is poison” and the accusation that the Jewish state had been “slaughtering children in Gaza.” The hospital apologized and promised it would crack down on enforcing policies intended to prevent the promotion of political ideologies to patients.

Another high-profile case involved midwife Fatimah Mohamied, who resigned from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after UK Lawyers for Israel exposed a series of anti-Israel posts — including an Oct. 8, 2023, message celebrating “Palestinians’ right to resist” the day after the most lethal day for the Jewish people since the end of the Holocaust. Mohamied has since filed a lawsuit claiming her supervisors illegally suppressed her pro-advocacy.

According to the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care, Mann will review how the NHS responds to antisemitism at all stages from hiring through professional oversight. He will also examine regulatory processors, transparency in investigations, the mechanisms used for reporting, and how to implement zero-tolerance policies properly.

Jewish organizations praised the move.

The Jewish Medical Association (JMA) said in a statement that it “has become increasingly concerned about blatant expressions of antisemitism — simply anti-Jewish racism — that have become widely tolerated across health care. British Jewish health-care students, professionals, and patients find this profoundly distressing and intimidating. The JMA welcomes Lord Mann’s review of the role of regulators in eliminating this toxic culture for Jews.”

Jewish Care CEO Daniel Carmel-Brown said his organization “welcomes the government’s commitment to tackling antisemitism and racism across the NHS and wider society. These measures send a powerful message that hatred and discrimination have no place in health care or anywhere else.”

Professor Habib Naqvi, chief executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, also endorsed the action.

“Tackling antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism involves clear communication of a zero-tolerance stance, implementing systemic changes, and creating a supportive environment for all employees,” Naqvi said. “That’s why we fully support roll out of the comprehensive measures announced today by the government. Our diverse workforce is the backbone of the NHS. It must be cared for, celebrated and respected for the outstanding care that it provides.”

Naqvi added that “at the same time, our patients, colleagues, and communities need to be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve. No one should be subjected to discrimination or abuse of any kind, within or outside of the workplace.”

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Cornell University Professor Retires to Avoid Suspension After Excluding Israeli From Class on Gaza

Cornell University, May 25, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

A Cornell University professor who according to the school violated federal anti-discrimination law when he expelled an Israeli student from class has reached an agreement with the administration which would allow him to retire and avoid serving a two-semester suspension he received as punishment for the incident.

During the spring semester earlier this year, Professor Eric Cheyfitz, an English literature and American Studies instructor, allegedly determined that the contributions of an Israeli student, Oren Renard, to a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict titled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” were “disruptive” and asked him to leave his class. Following the incident, Renard reported Cheyfitz for discrimination, triggering disciplinary charges and a dispute which drew in the faculty, national media, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Cornell had already canceled Cheyfitz’s courses in September in response to the matter and pressed the case for further disciplining him even after his colleagues in the faculty senate, an overwhelmingly left-wing and anti-Zionist body, voted to acquit him of the charge. However, Cheyfitz, who participated in anti-Israel encampments the previous year and has been criticized for propagating content which is “radical, factually inaccurate, and biased,” has refused to be corrected, citing academic freedom as justification for his actions.

Having reached an impasse, the two parties chose to part ways, ending Cheyfitz’s two-decade tenure.

“The Cornell Office of Civil Rights issued a finding of discrimination committed by Professor Cheyfitz,” the university told The Algemeiner in a statement shared on Thursday. “Professor Cheyfitz has chosen to retire and leave university employment, thus ending Cornell’s disciplinary process. The finding that Professor Cheyfitz violated Cornell policy and federal law remains in place.”

Anti-Zionists at Cornell University have attracted negative headlines and attention to the school before, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.

In October 2023, days after Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists abducted, raped, and murdered Israelis during a massacre which claimed 1,200 lives, history instructor Russell Rickford hailed the atrocities as “exhilarating” and “energizing” during a rally held on campus. Rickford later apologized for the comments while arguing that he “intended to stress grassroots African American, Jewish, and Palestinian traditions of resistance to oppression.” He addressed the expression of regret to “my family, my students, my colleagues, and many others,” but not to the Jewish community or Israelis — the chief targets of Hamas’s terror onslaught.

Not a month later, now-former student Patrick Dai threatened to perpetrate heinous crimes against members of the school’s Jewish community, including mass murder and rape, in a series of social media posts. In addition to threatening to harm individuals, Dai threatened to attack a kosher dining hall on campus — 104West, which is affiliated with the Steven K. And Winifred A. Grinspoon Hillel Center.

“Gonna shoot up 104 west… Allahu akbar! from the river to the sea, palestine will be free! glory to hamas! liberation by any means necessary!” one of his posts said. Another read, “If I see a pig male jew i will stab you and slit your throat. if i see another pig female jew i will drag you away and rape you and throw you off a cliff. if i see another pig baby jew i will behead you in front of your parents [sic].”

Dai has since been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison.

US college campuses saw an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — after the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. In a two-month span following the atrocities, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses alone. During that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.

To this day, Jewish students report feeling unsafe on the campus. According to a new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), the vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on university campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism.

A striking 78 percent of Jewish students have opted to “conceal” their religious affiliation “at least once” over the past year, the study found, with Jewish women being more likely than men to do so. Meanwhile, 81 percent of those surveyed hid their support for Zionism, a movement which promotes Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel, at least once over the past year.

Among all students, Orthodox Jews reported the highest rates of “different treatment,” with 41 percent saying that their peers employ alternative social norms in dealing with them.

“This survey exposes a devastating reality: Jewish students across the globe are being forced to hide fundamental aspects of their identity just to feel safe on campus,” ADL senior vice president of international affairs Marina Rosenberg said in a statement. “When over three-quarters of Jewish students feel they must conceal their religious and Zionist identity for their own safety, the situation is nothing short of dire. As the academic year begins, the data provides essential insights to guide university leadership in addressing this campus crisis head on.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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