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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Sarah Jessica Parker To Host Obama Fundraiser
Michelle, meet Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda. Sarah Jessica Parker is the latest Hollywood star to offer up her not-so-humble abode in the name of Obama fundraising. Following in the footsteps of George Clooney and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who raised a cool $15 million from a bash at Clooney’s place, Parker is offering up…
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Zuckerberg’s Surprise Wedding
Mark Zuckerberg may have not worn a suit to meet with investors in New York, but at least he ditched his hoodie for his own wedding. In a move that was a surprise even to the wedding guests, the Facebook founder and CEO married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan on Saturday in the backyard of…
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Books Author Blog: What’s In a Name?
Jonathan B. Krasner is the author of the National Jewish Book Award winning title “The Benderly Boys and American Jewish Education.” Krasner was also a finalist for the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author…
The Latest
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Out and About
The New Republic has hired back Franklin Foer as editor. Crown Heights gets a Hasidic art gallery. Could Boris Gelfand become the first Israeli world chess champion? Zackary Sholem Berger explores the Hasidic literary underground. White-collar criminal Andrew G. Bodnar wasn’t just ordered to write a book as part of his sentence, he also considered…
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John Cleese Will Star in Israeli’s Film
British comic actor John Cleese has signed on to a film by Israeli director Reshef Levi. Cleese will play a disgraced, eccentric British lord in the heist comedy “Hunting Elephants,” in which three Israeli senior citizens help a 12-year-old boy hatch a plan to rob a bank in order to save his family home. Cleese’s…
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Video: Zuckerberg, the Musical!
Guess what day it is today?! Yes, it’s Friday…but it’s also Mark Zuckerberg’s big day! If you haven’t been living under a rock lately, then you’ll know that today is Facebook’s IPO (that’s “initial public offering” for the financial anachronisms-challenged), and that it is the largest tech sector IPO ever. Before the hoody-wearing CEO gets…
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Books Author Blog: Tisha B’Av and the Olympic Games
Earlier this week, Dvora Meyers wrote about being an Orthodox Jewish gymnast and the designer of her book cover. 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: What happens when the saddest day…
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Edward James Olmos Tours the Holy Land
Actor Edward James Olmos is sitting at a Jerusalem cafe. For the better part of two weeks, this 65-year-old American actor-director, and star of television and the big screen, has traveled the length of Israel. He has taken in the holy sites in Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee, visited Sderot in the south and…
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Barbra Streisand Mourns Donna Summer
Barbra Streisand is among the many celebrities who have issued statements expressing sadness over the death of disco queen Donna Summer. Summer died from cancer May 17 at the age of 63. Streisand said she was shocked to hear or Summer’s passing and had not been aware that she was so ill. “She was so…
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Q&A: Daniel Okrent on ‘Old Jews Telling Jokes’
Daniel Okrent has a punch line ready when he’s asked how he discovered “Old Jews Telling Jokes,” the Web-video-series-turned-book that became a viral sensation in 2009. “I became an old Jew,” said the esteemed historian, inventor of the fantasy game Rotisserie League Baseball and first public editor of The New York Times. Now, Okrent can…
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Is Natan Eshel Really Gone?
In most of the world, leaving a job means exactly that — moving on. In this part of the Middle East, however, it doesn’t seem to mean much. Take, for example, two of the most important Palestinian figures. Does anyone recall that the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat actually resigned last year following the leak…
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
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Culture For Christian nationalists, Trump’s pope picture isn’t a joke
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Opinion Is Israel really going to reoccupy Gaza? Ask Trump
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Yiddish World A photo of my bubbe when Jewish stores still had Yiddish signs
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