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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Bintel Brief Goes All 2014
Starting in 1906, the Forward launched “A Bintel Brief,” a Yiddish-language advice column which documented the trials and tribulations of adapting to life in America. More than a century later, our friends at the Tenement Museum have picked up the torch — with a few modern touches. The Jewish Daily Forward, the most widely read…
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Yale Jewish Choir Sings at Brussels Vigil
Getty Images (JTA) — Moments before they were scheduled to start singing at an impromptu memorial vigil outside the Jewish Museum of Belgium, the 13 members of Yale University’s Jewish a cappella group were still unsure what number to perform. Fresh off the train from Paris, Magevet’s men and women had not initially planned to perform…
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Maya Angelou and Me
I first met Maya Angelou, who died on Wednesday May 27, in June, 1990 at the American Booksellers Convention at a press conference held at Washington’s Shoreham Hotel at which the towering Angelou got a roaring standing ovation from the press corp. The former dancer and actor, author, civil rights activist, poet and academic charmed,…
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Justin Timberlake Prays at Western Wall
Justin Timberlake landed in Israel and went straight to the Western Wall a day before his scheduled Tel Aviv concert. Timberlake avoided most of the paparazzi, landing at 3 a.m. on Tuesday and heading straight to the wall with his wife, actress Jessica Biel, and his parents. He posted a photo of himself at the…
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The Science of Laughter
Courtesy of Joel Warner Denver journalist Joel Warner and his co-author Peter McGraw, a marketing and psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, trekked across the world in search of the answer to a seemingly simple question: What makes people laugh? Their book, “The Humor Code,” is at once a lighthearted collection of…
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Cannes Diary #5: Prizes and Farewells
Getty Images After 10 cinema-soaked days, the International Jury, headed by Jane Campion, dished out the prizes of the 67th Cannes Film Festival. There were no multiple winners in a year when there were clearly not enough awards to go around. In fact, some have taken issue with the jury’s decision to award the Jury…
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Seth Rogen: ‘Schlubby Jews Aren’t The Problem’
Beware of schlubby Jews with beards. That’s basically what Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday wrote in an piece that called out frat-boy comedies such as the ones produced by Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow for enabling people like Elliot Rodgers, who killed six people near the University of California’s Santa Barbara campus on May 23….
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Why I Use ‘Yeshivish’
In my writing, I very purposefully label my ultra-Orthodox non-Hasidic community of origin the “Yeshivish” community or sect, although I know it is a strange label for some, like Ezra Glinter, who in a footnote to his thoughtful and thorough essay “Ex-Hasidic Writers Go Off the Path and Onto the Page,” questions my use of…
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Rolling Stones ‘Excited’ To Play Israel
Listen up, Israel: The Rolling Stones are excited to see you. A video released by the band, on Tuesday shows guitarist Ronnie Wood saying: “We are so excited to be playing Tel Aviv on June the 4th. We can’t wait to be there, and we can’t wait to see you all in the park.” Squeal!…
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Cannes Diary #4: Strong Women On Screen
Of the themes to emerge during this year’s Cannes Film Festival — incest, dogs, neglected children — uncommonly strong women have been the most pervasive. This seems appropriate in a year where the jury is presided over by Jane Campion, the only woman to win a Palme d’Or in the history of the festival. As the…
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Oscar Nemon, Freud’s Forgotten Sculptor
Photo courtesy of Aurelia Young Sigmund Freud did not like sitting for portraits. The results, he claimed, never justified the time he was forced to remain idle. But his devotees wanted to see the great man immortalized, the more urgently as Freud aged. In 1931, with Freud approaching his 75th birthday, Paul Federn, a physician…
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Yiddish World Inspired by a queer Bundist poet, this Jewish composer set her work to Yiddish music
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Fast Forward In Israel, an Arab-Jewish youth orchestra builds a new ‘East-West’ sound together
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News Brooklyn grocer’s boycott of Israeli products spurs celebration and talk of lawsuits