Renee Ghert-Zand
By Renee Ghert-Zand
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The Schmooze Embassy PSA to Young Israelis: Don’t Risk Illegal Work in the US
Replete with testimonies from witnesses with digitally altered appearances and electronically disguised voices, it’s a cross between a true crime show and Scared Straight. No, it’s not the latest reality TV show out of Hollywood. It’s a video called “The Price is Too High” made by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to warn young…
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The Schmooze Yizkor Prayer Controversy Spreads Through Facebook
Some Facebook users have recently been posting things like, “I thought Yom HaZikaron was last month” or “Yom HaZikaron again so soon?” as their statuses. It’s not because they don’t know that Israel’s Memorial Day takes place the day before Israel’s Independence Day, but rather because of all the “Yizkor” candle icons they have been…
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The Schmooze In Albany, A Scuffle Over Marriage Equality
If you were to ask the question “Who is a Jew?” to some ultra-Orthodox Jews demonstrating against marriage equality yesterday in the New York state capitol, their answer would definitively be “Not Sharon Kleinbaum.” In a video made yesterday by The Times Union (the newspaper serving the Albany region) and posted today on the gay…
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The Schmooze Q&A: Photographer Maya Barkai’s Walking and Working Worldwide Icons
Photo by Dan Keinan. Courtesy of Maya Barkai. In Downtown Manhattan, an international city where pedestrians clog the sidewalks, photographer Maya Barkai’s “Walking Men” fits right in. At the same time, these 99 life-size representations of “walk” signals from around the globe definitely stand out. “Walking Men 99,” an art installation stretching 500 feet around…
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The Schmooze Convicted Nazi War Criminal Convalesces in Alpine Nursing Home
In Bad Feilnbach, a postcard-perfect spa town in the Bavarian Alps, residents are crying NIMBY. It’s not a cell phone tower or nuclear energy plant they are concerned about, but rather something many find even more toxic — convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk. The 91-year-old Demjanjuk, a free man while his appeal wends itself…
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The Schmooze White House Switchboard Swamped With Calls for Pollard’s Temporary Release
Supporters of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard jammed the White House’s switchboard over the weekend, demanding his temporary release so that he could attend his father’s funeral today. Morris Pollard died at the age of 95 in South Bend, Ind., on the morning of Saturday, June 18. Angry that President Obama did not heed requests to…
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Food ‘Upcycling’: Finding a Second Life for Food Packaging
Long before anyone started using terms like “recycling,” “repurposing,” and “upcycling” (turning a disposable item like a soda can pull-tab into something intrinsically useful and longer lasting, like a handbag), our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew a thing or two about “reusing” food packaging. They lived in a world in which food did not come excessively…
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The Schmooze Blogger Spreads News of Anti-Semitic ‘Jew Count’ at University of Toronto
With all the Israel-related new anti-Semitism taking place on college campuses lately, people might forget that there is still some good old-fashioned, early 20th century-style anti-Semitism out there, too. Richard Klagsbrun, a Canadian social media entrepreneur and writer, reported on June 13 on his “Eye on a Crazy Planet” blog on anti-Semitism and a “Jew…
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