Josh Tapper
By Josh Tapper
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The Schmooze Sukkah City’s Cross-Country Plans in 2011
It may be hard to believe, but Sukkah City — the ambitious, large-scale architectural competition that took over Manhattan’s Union Square Park for two days last week — came from modest beginnings. “The idea came to me this past fall while I was doing sketches for my own backyard sukkah,” co-founder Joshua Foer told the…
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The Schmooze Philatelists Beware: Have You Seen a Hitler Skull Stamp?
In 1996, the New York Times reported that there were around 20 million stamp collectors in the country, and 550,000 of them were serious about it, carefully analyzing stamp research and slowly growing their collections. The hobby may not have much spark and intrigue, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a fruitful financial investment. More…
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The Schmooze College Football Rivalry Collides With Yom Kippur
Like it or not, college football has narrow associations: over-glorified, over-worked “student”-athletes; a byzantine and highly controversial championship system, otherwise known as the Bowl Championship Series; and boozing. Lots of boozing. So in the event a game happens to fall on, say, Yom Kippur, some students might be caught in a bind. Said event is…
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The Schmooze Holocaust Survivor Tweets Her Story
“Survival in Auschwitz,” 187 pages. “Fatelessness,” 272 pages. “Anka’s Story,” 140 characters. As far as Holocaust memoirs go, Anka Voticky’s is unlike anything you’ll ever read, er, tweet. The 97-year-old, who originally wrote a narrative memoir for her family’s records a few years ago, is sharing her story on the social media platform Twitter, posting…
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The Schmooze In Jewish Sports News…
Hope swelled for a quick moment after the NFL’s Oakland Raiders named Bruce Gradkowski their starting quarterback earlier this week, just days after he led his team to a 16-14 comeback victory over the Arizona Cardinals. Why? Certainly not because of Gradkowski’s quarterback rating of 66 over an inconsistent 27-game career. No, it seemed for…
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The Schmooze Did You Take Your Caffeine Suppository at Yom Kippur?
Yom Kippur is about atonement, cleansing your soul and starting anew. And since atonement doesn’t come easy, it also requires self-affliction, mostly performed through fasting. But if the fasting and the no washing and the no wearing leather shoes and the ban on sexual relations isn’t enough, next year you might try to inserting a…
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The Schmooze Cartoon Angers Jewish Group in Canada
Try as one might, it would be difficult for the discerning eye to disagree that the constellation of stars superimposed over one another on the clock face of Ottawa’s Peace Tower bears a slight resemblance to the Star of David. That interpretation is now a matter of debate after a Canadian French-language newspaper published a…
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The Schmooze Why It’s Always Fun To Talk Judaism With Woody Allen
It’s no secret that Woody Allen has a deep disaffection for organized religion. And it definitely ain’t a secret that Judaism, the filmmaker’s born religion, is the most frequent target of his jokes. (Here’s my personal favorite, from “Zelig”: “I’m 12 years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of…
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