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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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France Angry at ‘Arbitrary’ Prison Sentences Against Citizens in Iran
A woman walks past posters with the portraits of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens held in Iran, on the day of support rallies to mark their three-year detention and to demand their release, in front of the National Assembly in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. The slogan reads “Freedom for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.” Photo: REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
France condemned on Thursday the lengthy prison sentences given to two of its citizens for espionage, saying the charges were unfounded and the punishment arbitrary.
Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris have been detained since 2022, among dozens of foreign and dual nationals held by Iran in recent years, often on spy-related charges.
Rights groups and Western nations say they are being used as bargaining chips, which Iran denies.
“I would like to spare a special thought for our compatriots Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who have been detained for more than three years in Iran,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux told reporters.
“Both were arbitrarily sentenced just the day before yesterday to very long prison terms. The charges against them, whatever they may be, are completely unfounded. We call for their immediate release.”
The semi-official Fars news agency said on Tuesday the two had been sentenced, despite Paris and Tehran indicating progress in talks to release them a week ago.
Without specifically naming Kohler or Paris, the court sentenced one French citizen to six years in prison for spying on behalf of France, five years for conspiracy to commit a crime against national security, and 20 years for assisting Israeli intelligence services, Fars reported.
The other was handed 10 years in prison for spying on behalf of France, five for conspiracy, and 17 for aiding Israel.
France has repeatedly protested about their case, saying Kohler and Paris were in conditions akin to torture in Tehran’s Evin prison and had been denied proper consular protection.
Iran has denied those accusations.
Tehran, in turn, has accused France of arbitrarily detaining Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student arrested this year over anti-Israel social media posts.
An 18-year-old French-German cyclist arrested this year, Lennart Monterlos, was released last week by Iran after a court acquitted him of espionage charges.
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Israel Blames Hamas for Violating Ceasefire Over Deceased Hostages While Preparing Rafah Border Reopening
A view of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Israel said on Thursday it was preparing for the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt to let Palestinians in and out, but set no date as it traded blame with Hamas over violations of a US-mediated ceasefire.
A dispute over the return of Israeli hostages’ bodies held by Hamas threatens to derail the truce and other unresolved elements of the plan, including disarmament of terrorists and Gaza’s future governance.
Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters Israel remained committed to the agreement and continued to uphold its obligations, demanding Hamas return the bodies of the 19 deceased hostages it had not handed over.
The Islamist faction has handed over 10 bodies, but Israel said one was not that of a hostage. The terrorist group says it has handed over all bodies it could recover.
The armed wing of Hamas said the handover of more bodies in Gaza, largely reduced to vast tracts of rubble by the war, would require the admission of heavy machinery and excavating equipment into the enclave.
On Thursday, a senior Hamas official accused Israel of flouting the ceasefire by killing at least 24 people in shootings since Friday, and said a list of such violations was handed over to mediators.
“The occupying state is working day and night to undermine the agreement through its violations on the ground,” he said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond. It has previously said some Palestinians have ignored warnings not to approach Israeli ceasefire positions and troops “opened fire to remove the threat.”
Later on Thursday, local Hamas-run health authorities said an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed two people. The Israeli military said its forces fired at several individuals who emerged from a tunnel shaft and approached troops, describing them as posing an immediate threat.
Israel has said the next phase of the 20-point plan to end the war, a blueprint engineered by US President Donald Trump’s administration, calls for Hamas to relinquish its weapons and cede power, which it has so far refused to do.
Hamas has instead launched a security crackdown in urban areas vacated by Israeli forces, demonstrating its power through public executions and clashes with local armed clans.
Twenty remaining living hostages were freed on Monday in exchange for thousands of Palestinians jailed in Israel. Many of the Palestinian prisoners were serving lengthy sentences for terrorist activity.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Thursday Israel had released 30 bodies of Palestinians killed during the conflict, taking the number of bodies it has received since Monday to 120.
Longer-term elements of Trump’s plan, including the make-up of an international “stabilization force” for the densely populated territory and moves towards creating a Palestinian state – rejected by Israel – have yet to be hashed out.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said on Thursday the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) would work with international institutions and partners to address Gaza’s security, logistical, financial, and governance challenges.
An upcoming conference in Egypt on Gaza’s reconstruction would need to clarify how donor funds are organized, who would receive them, and how they would be disbursed, he told reporters.
Hamas ejected the PA from Gaza in a brief and violent civil war in 2007.
In a statement on Thursday, Israel‘s military aid agency COGAT said coordination was under way with Egypt to set a date for reopening the Rafah crossing for movement of people after completing the necessary preparations.
COGAT said the Rafah crossing would not open for aid as this was not stipulated by the truce deal at any stage, rather all humanitarian goods bound for Gaza would pass through Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom after undergoing security inspections.
Italian news agency ANSA quoted Israel‘s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar as saying Rafah will probably be reopened on Sunday.
Aid trucks rolled into Gaza on Wednesday and Israel said 600 had been approved to go in under the truce pact. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher called that a “good base” but nowhere near enough, with medical care also scarce and most of the 2.2 million population homeless.
On Thursday UNICEF said that in recent days it brought in 250 pallets of supplies including family tents, winter clothes, tarpaulins, sanitary pads, and hygiene kits. It has also distributed more than 56,000 packs of baby food to help 12,500 children for two weeks, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run Gaza media office, said the aid that had entered since the fighting subsided was a “drop in the ocean.”
“The region urgently requires a large, continuous and organized inflow of aid, fuel, cooking gas, and relief and medical supplies,” he told Reuters.
The war was triggered by Hamas‘s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage back to Gaza.
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Swedish Prosecutor Identifies Suspect in Koran-Burner Murder Case
Salwan Momika, an anti-Islam activist, in Malmo, Sweden, Sept. 3, 2023. Photo: TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS
A suspect has been identified in the murder of an anti-Islam campaigner in Sweden in January, the public prosecutor said on Monday, a case that the Swedish prime minister has said might have links to foreign powers.
“We have a good picture of the sequence of events and after extensive technical investigations and review of obtained surveillance footage,” the prosecutor said in a statement. “At present, the suspect‘s whereabouts are unknown.”
The statement did not name the suspect.
Court documents obtained by Reuters showed the suspect was a 24-year-old Syrian man who lived in Sweden at the time of the murder. It said Koran–burner Salwan Momika had been shot three times and the killing “had been preceded by careful planning.”
A detention hearing was set for Friday in a district court – a procedure under Swedish law prior to the issuance of an international wanted notice for the suspect.
Momika, an Iraqi refugee who frequently burned and desecrated copies of the Koran at public rallies, was shot dead in a town near Stockholm hours before the verdict in a trial where he stood accused of “offences of agitation against an ethnic or national group.”
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in January, referring to the killing, that “there is obviously a risk that there is a connection to a foreign power.”
The Koran burnings, seen by Muslims as a blasphemous act as they consider the Koran to be the literal word of God, drew widespread condemnation and complicated Sweden’s NATO accession process, which was eventually completed in 2024.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in 2023 that people who desecrate the Koran should face the “most severe punishment” and that Sweden had “gone into battle array for war on the Muslim world” by allegedly supporting those responsible.
Sweden in 2023 raised its terrorism alert to the second-highest level and warned of threats against Swedes at home and abroad after the Koran burnings. It was lowered back to three on a scale of five earlier this year.