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The Schmooze

Out and About: National Book Critics Circle Finalists; Sacha Baron Cohen to Play Saddam Hussein

  • Film Criticism is doing better than ever, according to Roger Ebert.

  • Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award include novelists David Grossman for “To the End of the Land” and Hans Keilson for “Comedy in a Minor Key”; Christopher Hitchens for his autobiography “Catch 22”; Tom Segev for his biography of Simon Wiesenthal, and Forward contributor Susie Linfield for “Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence.”

  • Tullia Zevi, a longtime leader of Italian Jewry, has died at age 91.

  • Young Isrealis just love Berlin, according to Der Spiegel.

  • Today is 50 years since Bob Dylan arrived in New York City.

  • Forward contributor Mark Oppenheimer writes in Slate about his life-long recovery from snobbery.

  • Sacha Baron Cohen is set to star in a movie, apparently based on the novel “Zabibah and The King” by Saddam Hussein.

  • On a more serious note, to whom should the Iraqi Jewish Archive belong?

  • Vox Tablet profiles classical music star Simone Dinnerstein.

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