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The Schmooze

Out and About: Israeli Music for Syrian Protestors; The Shame of Playing Shylock

  • The Independent takes a look at Habonim, the Socialist Zionist youth group that was once home to Mike Leigh, David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen.

  • The Brooklyn Rail revisits the work of Russian Jewish filmmaker Dziga Vertov, on the occasion of a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

  • Israeli singer Amir Benayoun (profiled in the Forward here) has recorded a CD in Arabic that has been passed on to Syrian protestors.

  • The shame of Shylock: Patrick Stewart, Anthony Sher and others tell what it’s like to play Shakespeare’s most infamous role.

  • At the Jewish Week, Steve Lipman profiles Sacha Pecaric, a Croatian-born Orthodox rabbi who has translated some 30 classical Jewish texts into Polish.

  • At Tablet, Harold Heft profiles Chaim Tannenbaum, longtime collaborator of the Wainwright-McGarrigle folksinging family.

  • Joseph Berger profiles Bel Kaufman — writer, teacher and granddaughter of Sholom Aleichem — on her 100th birthday.

  • Does Bob Dylan’s upcoming concert in Ramat Gan mean he’s a Zionist?

  • Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

  • Adam Levin has won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award for his recent novel, “The Instructions.”

  • The Spanish Island of Majorca confronts its Jewish past.

  • How screenwriter Dan Fogelman went from writing TV Guide blurbs to movies for Steve Carrell.

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