The Schmooze lies at the intersection of high and low culture. Here, the latest developments and trends in Jewish art, books, dance, film, music, media, television and theater are all assimilated into one handy pop culture blog.
The Schmooze
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Mayim Bialik: ‘Women Are Ready To Be Orthodox Spiritual Leaders’
Mayim Bialik released a video on YouTube Thursday highlighting B’nai David-Judea, the only Orthodox synagogue in Southern California which employs a female member of the clergy. In the video, Bialik speaks of the male-centric roots of Judaism and the inevitable evolution of Orthodox Judaism. “My history was written by men,” says Bialik in the video….
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We Tried ‘JoyBox,’ The First Subscription Box For Jewish Holidays
It’s 2018, and if you aren’t regularly mailing adorable gift boxes to yourself, you aren’t living. I’m speaking, of course, about subscription boxes, a fruit-of-the-month-on-steroids trend where one pays to receive monthly or quarterly packages in the mail filled with themed products — Korean face masks, exotic spices, meal kits — if it’s fun and…
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Kathy Lee Gifford Calls Those Who Abandoned Harvey Weinstein ‘Fairweather Friends’
Back when I was a nine-year-old aspiring pop star, I wrote a song entitled “Friendship”, the lyrics of which went “Friendship goes on and on and on and on and friendship never ends, friendship goes on and on and on and on and friendship never bends.” Since then, I’ve learned two crucial lessons: pop stars…
The Latest
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Milo Yiannopoulos Uses Western Wall As Prop For Anti-Immigration Stunt
Alt-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos staged a photo-shoot for social media this week in which he put a letter in a mock Western Wall, asking for “speedy deportations.” The 33 year-old who has said of sexual relationships between 13 year-olds and adults, “these things do happen, perfectly consensually,” wore a kippah emblazoned with the acronym “ICE,”…
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Is An ‘Escape-the-Room’ Game Based On Pogroms Really Coming To Brooklyn?
You know that awful nightmare you have where you’re stuck in Europe on the eve of the Holocaust and your family can’t get visas and you end up trapped in an attic, trying not to breath as SS soldiers march beneath you? Wild rumors are spreading throughout the Jewish world by ear and by Internet…
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Harper Lee’s Estate Sues Aaron Sorkin Over His Broadway Adaptation Of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’
Aaron Sorkin’s attempt to “Aaron Sorkin-ize” the classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” for Broadway is not going as planned. The New York Times reported Thursday that Harper Lee’s estate is suing Sorkin for deviating from the novel’s original plot. The New York Times reports: “In a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Alabama,…
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College Exam Asks: ‘Why Did Monica Lewinsky Have Affair’ With Clinton?
School is hard. There’s homework and pop quizzes and senior theses and sometimes your grade depends on why you think Monica Lewinsky engaged in an extramarital affair with President Bill Clinton in 1997. Wednesday evening, Twitter user @lacyalexandraaa shared a picture of a college midterm from a class called “Intimate Relationships” (??????) on which one…
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Roger Waters Compares Palestinians To Native Americans In New Song
Roger Waters, outspoken pro-BDS activist and former member of Pink Floyd, has released a new song in collaboration with Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, and a Palestinian band, Trio Joubran. According to Rolling Stone, Waters intends the song to be a swipe at Donald Trump for formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The…
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Trevor Noah: ‘Working For The White House Is Like Being In A Saw Movie’
Trevor Noah hit the nail on the head Tuesday night on “The Daily Show” when he compared working for the White House to being in a “Saw” movie. “You show up, you get tortured for a while, and you get killed off,” said Noah, accurately describing what working for Donald Trump is like. Although Secretary…
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Richard Simmons To Pay National Enquirer $130,000 After Failed Transgender Libel Suit
Richard Simmons is on the hook for $130,000 after unsuccessfully suing the National Enquirer for publishing a story that falsely claimed the workout guru was transitioning from male to female. The Los Angeles Times reports that the National Enquirer was awarded this amount in a decision handed down Friday. The tabloid had initially requested $220,000…
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Shia LeBoeuf Got Into Yale With A Recommendation Letter From Steven Spielberg
Our society tends to focus so much on the downsides of being a child star (stunted adolescence, lack of an education, high rates of drug addiction and mental illness) that we forget about all the perks! Like, money, for example, or getting a college recommendation letter from the most famous director in the world. In…
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Most Popular
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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