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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Books
Talking With an Angel in Suburban Hell
An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell By Deborah Levy And Other Stories, 96 pages Whether writing with barely suppressed rage or achieving a brisk comic pace, the writing of Deborah Levy rarely lets the reader grow complacent. Her earliest novels, “Beautiful Mutants” and “Swallowing Geography,” channeled Thatcher-era fury through surrealistic modes and landscapes….
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Shoes by Jews Takes the Tribe by Storm
Are you a nice Jewish boy and want more attention when you’re out at a bar? Perhaps you want a better chance at nabbing that new job? Well, you’re in for a rude awakening. It’s a sad fact of life that members of the tribe are known to be, well, on the shorter side. Why…
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The ‘Idiotest’ Funnyman Around: An Interview with Ben Gleib
You might know comedian Ben Gleib from his regular appearances as a round-table commentator on “Chelsea Lately,” or from his podcast, “Last Week on Earth With Ben Gleib.” Perhaps you’re familiar with his work on NBC’s “The Real Wedding Crashers” or with his stint on the same network’s “Last Comic Standing.” But now, the 36-year-old…
The Latest
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Remembering a 20-Year Protest for Soviet Jewry
Photo Courtesy of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington Long before Occupy Wall Street, protests were held from 12:30 to 12:45 p.m. every day from December 10, 1970, until January 27, 1991, in front of the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C., in an effort to raise awareness about the mistreatment of Soviet Jews. Those…
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VIDEO: Shimon Peres Needs a Job
Hiring? Shimon Peres is your man. A newly released video (in Hebrew with English subtitles) from the Peres Center for Peace has the former president seeking help from an unemployment office. Turns out, the 91-year-old shows an impressive range of skills. from pumping gas to pizza delivery, with a skydiving session or two thrown in…
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Happy Hobbit Day, the Jewish Way
Every year, a great day dawns on Middle Earth. I’m speaking of course, of September 22 — Hobbit Day, for those who didn’t grow up on a steady diet of tales of rings, angry wizards, and small creatures with big feet. According to “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings,” both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins are…
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An Israeli Artist’s Abandoned Spaces
Naomi Safran-Hon, ‘Wadi Salib: Living Room with 4 Windows,’ 2013 Art is a language of its own, and Naomi Safran-Hon is redefining its words. “Hard Times: Paintings,” is a small solo exhibition of the Israeli artist’s most recent work currently on display at Slag Gallery in Brooklyn. The gallery explores the evolution of mediums (Slag…
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Conversations With Ed Koch
That Neil Barsky selected Ed Koch as the subject of his first film was far from an accident. Barsky spent his formative years in New York during Koch’s mayoralty (1978-1989), both as a high school student and later as a journalist. The city was in the midst of desperate times. Crime was rampant and the…
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Forging Art for Fun and Philanthropy
Art forger Mark Landis is the subject of the documentary “Art and Craft,” directed by Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker. The film focuses on Landis’s history of art forgeries and the process he went through to create and donate them. The film also features Matthew Leininger, a museum registrar from Cincinnati who discovered…
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Rabbi Joseph Potasnik Gets Jan Karski Humanitarian Award
Welcoming the overflow crowd at the Jan Karski Humanitarian Award 2014 ceremony at the Polish Consulate honoring Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis, and Polish rescuer Irena Sendler, was consul general Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka who thanked members of the Polish-Jewish Dialogue Committee — Polish American Congress, the N.Y. Downstate…
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12 Underappreciated Leonard Cohen Songs
Leonard Cohen is not a very prolific artist. In a 47-year music career he has made just 13 studio albums, along with a passel of live releases. (Compare that with Bob Dylan’s 35, or Neil Young’s 39 solo records.) But despite the relatively small size of Cohen’s catalog, it still has a lot of underappreciated…
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