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.

Israeli hostages who returned from Gaza on Monday began giving structured accounts of their captivity that described torture, starvation, prolonged isolation, confinement in underground cages, and efforts by their Hamas captors to convert them to Islam. 

Several freed hostages said they were kept alone for months at a time with little food or light. Avinatan Or, abducted from the Nova music festival in October 2023, spent more than two years in isolation and saw other hostages only at the point of release. An initial medical examination found he had lost between 30 percent and 40 percent of his body weight and relatives said he had been “starved and terrified” for extended periods, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. 

Or was reunited with his girlfriend, former hostage Noa Argamani, who was released in a rescue operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in June 2024, along with three other hostages. He did not know about Argamani’s fate until his release. The two were featured in a viral video filmed by Hamas of their kidnapping, becoming symbols of the acts of terrorism of that day. 

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists from Gaza kidnapped 251 hostages and murdered 1,200 people during their invasion of and rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. All the living hostages still in captivity were released on Monday as part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal to halt fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. However, the Palestinian terrorist group has still not handed over the remains of 19 deceased hostages, violating its obligation under the agreement to release everyone who was abducted during the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Relatives of one of the living hostages freed this week, Omri Miran, 48, said he had been held in 23 separate places above ground and in tunnels. His brother Nadav said Miran remained roughly aware of the days and how much time had passed. There were long stretches in which guards passed the time alongside him. “Sometimes he would cook food for his captors, and they loved his cooking,” Nadav said, adding that some guards used Hebrew to communicate and that card games filled parts of the day. Miran, a father of two, returned home this week and was filmed playing with his daughters. His brother said he “looks pale, but his sense of humor is the same.”

Other accounts focused on the loss of time and physical restraint. Elkana Bohbot, 36, who worked at the Nova festival, told his wife he had been chained in a tunnel for most of his captivity and that the lack of sunlight erased any sense of day or date, except for the date of his wedding anniversary in which he insisted on a shower. His terrorist guard at first refused, then removed his chains and showered him. At times he said he was shown images of rallies and public appeals by his family seeking his release.

Reports from the families described harsher treatment during the early phase of captivity and in the weeks before release. The mother of 22-year-old Matan Angrest, a soldier, said her son had faced “very severe torture” in the initial months. “He remembers being beaten so badly that he lost consciousness,” she said. She described guards dragging him while covered in black sacks and tunnel walls collapsing around him during fighting above ground. In the last four months he was confined to a small, dark tunnel under “special guard,” she said. 

According to his mother, captors told Angrest that Israelis had given up on the hostages and that Hamas had conquered Israel and were planning “the next Oct. 7.” They also falsely claimed his Holocaust survivor grandparents were dead. Learning that they were alive after his return “motivated” him, she said.

Families also cited changes in the way some hostages were handled as ceasefire talks advanced. Ilan Dalal, father of Guy Gilboa-Dalal, said he had been held in a tunnel with another hostage, Evyatar David, until about a month ago, after which he was moved separately and then held in another tunnel with a different hostage, Alon Ohel, until release. His son had been “force-fed” in recent weeks, likely the result of international outcry after Hamas released footage showing an emaciated David being forced to dig his own grave.

Accounts from twins Gali and Ziv Berman, snatched from Kfar Aza, said they were held separately in total isolation and were unaware the other was alive. It was the longest time the twins had ever spent apart. They told family members there were times of food scarcity and times when more food was available. Some guards spoke Hebrew. The twins said that while underground they could hear IDF activity nearby but could not determine where they were or what was happening above ground.

Religious coercion featured in the account of Rom Braslavski, who was held largely in isolation by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, according to his mother, Tami. She told Israel’s Channel 13 news that he “suffered abuse” but she declined to elaborate further. She said guards demanded that he convert to Islam and promised better treatment if he read the Quran or observed Ramadan fasts. He refused, she said, and upon release “kept saying, ‘I am Jewish … I am strong,’ and he put on tefillin,” referring to small leather boxes with straps traditionally wrapped on one’s head and arm at the start of weekday morning prayers.

Tami Braslavski described psychological tactics that included false claims that “Iran bombed Israel” and stitched footage designed to convince him his parents had abandoned him.

A heartfelt Shehechaynu for the returned hostages; for their unconquerable families; for the 915 valiant soldiers of the IDF who died, and the thousands injured; for the strong and capable leaders of Israel and the United States, supported by amazing and capable diplomats. President Donald Trump in the Knesset proved he doesn’t need a Nobel Prize (who wants to be in the company of Yasser Arafat anyhow?). He knows and we know what they did.

But the war is not over. Hamas violated the agreement in the first moment by retaining deceased hostages and putting a Palestinian body in a coffin given to Israel.

Bravo to the Abraham Accords countries, who held fast; to the stalwart supporters of Israel in the US and in countries where it is uncomfortable and even dangerous to wear a Magen David; to military professionals who gave professional military information to those of us who needed to understand the war on the ground and clearly understand that Israel had NOT committed “genocide.”

But the war isn’t over. Despite a clearly defined and publicized line for the IDF to maintain, Gazans have been sent to violate the line. Some have been killed.

Israel remains the regional strong horse despite the grinding of Gaza. Israel’s not-quite-complete destruction of Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran in Syria and Lebanon, and — with American coordination and participation — destruction of enormous swaths of Iranian nuclear and conventional capabilities has been a regional game-changer. Israeli diplomats are talking to Syrian government officials, and Indonesia was a pleasant surprise.

But the war isn’t over. As Palestinian analyst Ahmed Fouad AlKatib of The Atlantic Council posted:

Hamas channels are making it clear and repeating their slogan: “We are the flood; we are the day after.” Their terrorists emerged from the tunnels, and when they’re not executing or shooting Gazans, they walk around markets, steal aid & impose taxes like a gang. This is not the behavior of a group that’s demobilizing or deradicalizing. They are reinventing themselves as policemen and want to have a central role in the future of Gaza.

After two horrifying, terrifying, heartbreaking years, and betrayal, a resilient Israel moves to the next step. Life. Baruch HaShem. But this is why we break a glass at a wedding.

Life means dealing with the world as it is. Hamas is not defeated, Gaza needs a lifeline, and Israel needs recovery. And the President’s plan has 20 points, of which only three — the most important three — have been achieved. There will be pressure for the other seventeen.

The most important “next step” is not “rebuilding” or “investing,” per the Cairo agreement, but to recall Hamas ran Gaza because it overthrew the Palestinian Authority (PA) — the West’s puppet — in a bloody civil war in 2007. The PA “governs” Judea and Samaria only because Israel continually routs Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) from its nests in Jenin and Nablus. Can the PA be wiggled back into Gaza? Don’t pretend Hamas is defeated. This, in an ugly nutshell, is the problem of doing “politics” with Palestinian “partners.”

Pay serious attention to Gaza voices. Karim Jouda has been posting from Gaza all along:

For the first time in 20 years, it can be clearly said that there are armed forces in Gaza capable of confronting Hamas’s power from within. No one knows where Gaza is heading, but if Hamas does not make internal Palestinian concessions, the Strip will not calm down.

AlKhatib again:

Hamas’s new terror unit, “Rade3′” or “the deterrer,” joins its “Saham” or “arrow” unit in hunting down Gazans suspected of being opponents of its rule, kidnapping, torturing, executing, and disappearing dozens of people using vans, trucks, and SUVs. Hamas has declared all-out war on all clans, any opposition, and other families or people who are suspected of “harboring” anti-Hamas activists. This has created an unprecedented campaign of terror and fear that’s got everyone worried about being executed for miscellaneous disputes because all it takes is being labeled an “Israeli collaborator” or “traitor” to be killed.

Where is the hope? Where is the life? For Palestinians, it is in the acceptance of defeat and from learning its lessons. Dr. Az al-Din Shihab reacted to Hamas’s declaration of victory:

We were the victims of the destruction that Hamas began from within our own homes — and then the Israeli army unleashed its full force upon us, while Hamas operatives vanished into their tunnels.

May history record the truth: we were defeated — utterly, painfully, and finally. And we, the people of Gaza, are the ones who have the right to say whether we were defeated or not — not those who sit comfortably in Qatar or Turkey…

And somewhere amid all this, I understood something simple yet terrible: My mother’s tears are holier than my homeland itself, and my father’s grief means more to me than any flag.

Sometimes you hit bottom before you rise; Jews have hit bottom many times in our history, but we rise. Whatever progress comes in the President’s plan — there are a lot of good things in it for everyone; a hallmark of Trumpian diplomacy — there are real people in Gaza, some good, some evil, some defeated, some not. And to ignore them is a huge mistake — the future of Israel is intimately tied to what happens there.

The day the living hostages returned was a day to celebrate.

As former hostage Eli Sharabi said, “Now, Life.”

But tomorrow is here. 

Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.