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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Agudah Editor Joseph Friedenson Dies at 90
Joseph Friedenson, the founder and long-time editor of the Agudath Israel organ Dos Yiddishe Vort, passed away February 23 at his home in Manhattan, the Forverts reported. Friedenson, a survivor of the Holocaust, founded the monthly Yiddish journal in the Feldafing and Landesberg displaced persons camps in Germany, and edited it continually in New York…
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Books Author Blog: Obsession in Blue
Baruch and Judy Sterman’s “The Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered” is now available. Their blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: We admit it,…
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Is Natalie Portman Pregnant?
Natalie Portman’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party dress sparked rumors that she may be pregnant again. The actress arrived wearing an ivory empire-waist Dior gown with a black bow accent that led to speculation that she might be hiding a baby bump. Portman and her husband Benjamin Millepied have a son Aleph, who will turn two…
The Latest
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New Director at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
Thirty-five years ago, Lori Starr, then a graduate student, spent nine months in San Francisco on a museum education fellowship. This June, she will return to the City by the Bay to become the executive director of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. For Starr, this new position marks a return to California after seven years in…
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End of an Era for Judith Malina’s Living Theatre
Judith Malina will not go gentle into that good night. The fiery 86-year-old director of the Living Theatre is losing both her apartment and the Lower East Side home of the world renowned theater troupe she co-founded 66 years ago. Later this week Malina will move into an elder care facility in New Jersey, but…
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Academy Award Highlights
It wasn’t a big night for the Jews at this year’s Academy Awards. The two Israeli documentaries, “5 Broken Cameras” and “The Gatekeepers” were shut out. The best director award didn’t go to Steven Spielberg for “Lincoln” (though the film did get the award for best production design), or to Benh Zeitlin for “Beasts of…
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A.B. Yehoshua: ‘The Settlements Are a Drug’
“In a time of crisis, there is rational tendency to turn to the writer,” A. B. Yehoshua told his audience at London’s Jewish Book Week on February 24. It is rational, he proposed, because the novelist “deals in the writing with morality” and is constantly grappling with essential questions. Politics was indeed an inescapable subject…
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Books American Jewry’s Top 100 List
M. M. Silver is a modern Jewish history scholar at Max Stern College of Emek Yezreel in Israel. His newest book, “Louis Marshall and the Rise of Jewish Ethnicity in America: A Biography,” is now available. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s…
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Canada’s Guiltiest Playwright
How busy is Hannah Moscovitch? A mini-festival of her plays, including two world premieres, opened February 20 at Toronto’s prestigious Tarragon Theatre. She’s juggling commissions for theater, television and opera, along with film work like an adaptation of Alison Pick’s Holocaust-themed novel “Far to Go.” And she holds down a day job writing a popular…
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Books Author Blog: Places Never Seen
Earlier this week, Jay Neugeboren wrote about the title story of his third collection and the art of silence. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: My most recently published novel, “The…
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Israel at the Oscars
At this year’s Academy Awards, Israel’s blossoming film industry has two nominations for the Best Documentary Award. In this highly competitive category, Israel is dominating with “The Gatekeepers,” following former chiefs of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service operators, who give a tell-all expose of some of the most notorious operations in the West Bank…
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In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Will NY Gov. Kathy Hochul’s endorsement of Zohran Mamdani cost her Jewish support?
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Fast Forward In Israel, public tributes to Charlie Kirk include a street naming, a mural and a missile in Gaza
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Opinion Amid terror in Jerusalem, a cab driver’s brave gesture showcased the Israel I’ve always loved
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Looking Forward Everyone thought I was crazy for majoring in religious studies. Here’s why it matters now more than ever.
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