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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David Copperfield and MLK
Magician David Copperfield has purchased a newly discovered 1960 audiotape interview of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and has donated it to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. The tape was discovered by Stephon Tull of Chattanooga, Tenn. as he was cleaning out the attic in his father’s home. He found the…
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Fashion Week: Donna Karan’s Runway
Donna Karan showed off her Spring 2013 collection at the New York Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week this afternoon with the likes of Vogue editor Anna Wintour and New York Times fashion photographer Bill Cunningham looking on. Karan’s models wore a sophisticated, tailored silver dress with a cropped, matching blazer; a long, silver toga-esque dress, with a…
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Books Author Blog: The Book of Jonah
Shani Boianjiu’s debut novel, “The People of Forever Are Not Afraid,” is now available. 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 characters in my novel, “The People of Forever Are Not…
The Latest
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Fashion Week: Diane Von Furstenberg’s Runway
Diane Von Furstenberg showed her new line at New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week yesterday. The models and Von Furstenberg wore Google Glasses, capturing footage for a video that will be produced after Fashion Week. The clothes — loose, drape-y dresses in reds, white and black — were classic Von Furstenberg. Von Furstenberg launched her first…
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Red Hot Chili Peppers Jet Into Israel
The Red Hot Chili Peppers arrived in Israel ahead of their first concert ever in the country. The band landed in Israel on a private jet from Istanbul and traveled directly to the Western Wall, according to reports. They are scheduled to perform in front of tens of thousands of ticket holders on Monday night…
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In Folk Music, Sincerity Is Not Enough
“Thoughtless Sounds,” Max Jared’s debut Shemspeed release and the first on Shemspeed’s new folk imprint, Soul Snack Records, follows the blueprint for sentimental adult contemporary rock laid out by Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson: light accessible vocals, sensitive acoustic strumming and unobtrusive tunes. Like those other artists, Jared’s lyrical pallet assumes a sacred hippie slacker…
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Fashion Week: Zac Posen’s Runway
Fashion luminary Zac Posen is showing his new line this evening at New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. The son of a corporate lawyer and artist in Manhattan, Posen always knew he wanted to design fashion. As a child he would take yarmulkes from his grandparents’ synagogue and make dresses for dolls with them. When he…
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A Brazilian Bar Mitzvah Video Goes Viral
Forget about the religious ceremony: A bar or bat mitzvah is an opportunity for the family to show off its riches, with lavish parties in fancy hotels and enough food to feed a small town. Right? Well, at least that’s how I remember it, growing up in Rio in the 1990’s. Every weekend there would…
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Fashion Week in Legal Terms
This morning I attended a Fashion Week event, put on by the Fashion Law Institute in New York City. In many ways it was like any other show. Models, dressed in tiny floral bikinis and metallic vests, posed in the center of the room, while viewers sipped champagne and snapped photos. But this event was…
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Memoir of An Algerian Jewish Prostitute
“Locked Rooms: the Story of an Algerian Jewish Prostitute,” released on Amazon Kindle by Nouveau Monde editions, is the work of Germaine Aziz, who died in 2003 at age 77 after having survived daunting challenges. Aziz’s memoir, which originally appeared from Les éditions Stock in 1980 and was reprinted in 2007 by Nouveau Monde, is…
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Reggae’s Jewish Connection
In 1997, writer, producer and performer Michael Goldwasser founded reggae collective Easy Star All-Stars, and has since then released half a dozen albums with names like “Dub Side of the Moon,” “Radiodread,” and “Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band.” Their latest album, a reggae-homage to Michael Jackson, “Thrillah,” slows down singles like “Beat It” and…
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