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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Happy New Year, Gangnam Style
The Jewish New Year is the time for Jews everywhere to look inward and ask those meaningful questions: What does God want of me? Have I been the best me? What exactly does Gangnam actually mean? The Internet can’t answer all these, but thankfully, it can provide us with Gangnam Style, a Korean pop song…
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Tiny Israel Town Makes Big Soccer Splash
With a population of just over 23,000, the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona doesn’t often get a chance to stand out on the map of Israel. On Thursday, however, the city’s Israeli Premier League soccer club took a big step towards putting its hometown on the map in Europe. This past spring, Hapoel Ironi…
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Israel Picks Haredi Drama as Oscar Entry
Having won seven Ophir Awards, “Fill the Void” has secured its place as Israel’s Oscar entry for this year. The film, with its artful and gripping insider look at life among a Hasidic community in Tel Aviv, snagged Ophirs for best film, best director, best screenplay, best actress and best supporting actress, among others. “Fill…
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Books Wandering Mother, Wondering Daughter: Part Three
Earlier this week, Anne Cherian wrote about visiting the synagogue of the Cochin Jews in India and about her own experiences with Judaism. Her 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: The first…
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Jeff Astrof on Keeping Shabbos and ‘Partners’
CBS has enough confidence in its newest sitcom to give it a prime spot in its Monday night lineup, sandwiched between two hits, “How I Met Your Mother” and “2 Broke Girls.” That show, “Partners,” is premiering September 24 and is about two childhood friends navigating adult relationships. Joe (David Krumholtz) and Louis (Michael Urie)…
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Into Wilderness of Errol
Because Errol Morris believes in the power of eye contact, he invented unpatented machines called the Interrotron and the Megatron that allow his documentary subjects to look directly at his face on a projected screen while he is in another room. This unusual method lends a startling intensity and intimacy to his mesmerizing films. It…
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Shmooze Celebrity Roundup
Pixie-coiffed Anne Hathaway accompanied her fiancé Adam Shulman to Rosh Hashanah services on Monday. The paparazzi documented a lot of PDA on the couple’s way to IKAR at the Westside JCC in Los Angeles. Hathaway and Shulman weren’t the only ones doing some New Year’s smooching. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher were spotted locking lips…
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Books Wandering Mother, Wondering Daughter: Part Two
Yesterday, Anne Cherian wrote about visiting the synagogue of the Cochin Jews in India. Her 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 mother wasn’t the only Jew in our small town in…
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Amid Holidays, Israel Wins Baseball Opener
The history of Jews in baseball is inexorably tied to the High Holidays, with the stories of Hank Greenberg attending Rosh Hashanah services in Detroit in 1939 before playing for the Tigers (with rabbinical approval) and Sandy Koufax’s refusal to pitch the first game of the 1965 World Series on Yom Kippur standing out as…
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A Guide To The Fall Classical Music Season
As this fall’s concert season kicks off, Manhattanites in search of classical performances with a dollop of Yiddishkeit will have a delightful array of choices, starting with the genial ghost of beloved Austrian Jewish violinist Fritz Kreisler, which presides over the New York Philharmonic’s Opening Gala. On September 27 at Avery Fisher Hall, Itzhak Perlman…
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‘Truthful Propaganda’ From Gaza
“Tears of Gaza,” a Norwegian documentary about the Gaza Strip under assault during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead of December 2008 and January 2009, is presented in Arabic with English subtitles. It may be characterized as “truthful propaganda.” There’s no reason to doubt most of what you see, but the film makes no apology for showing…
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Most Popular
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
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Opinion American Jews were played — now what?
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