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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Poem: ‘Sefirah 5704’
between Pesach and Shavuos in the Greater Hungary spring of 1944 did Jews count the weeks in ghettos the days in cattle cars without food or toilets the hours, minutes, seconds churning past burgeoning fields of new grain until they reached their ultimate destination?
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What Do Bibi and Chelsea Handler Have in Common?
Has Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu been reading that classic self-help book by Dale Carnegie? It would appear, at least according to Time magazine’s latest list, that he has indeed been winning friends and influencing people. For the second year and a row, Bibi has been named by Time as one of “The100 Most Influential…
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Lost Diary Offers Glimpse Into Anti-Semitic Mind
Crossposted from Haaretz Tova Meir, a Hungarian-born woman and a member of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar, sat last Monday in one of the rooms of The Memorial Museum Of Hungarian Speaking Jewry in Safed, and browsed through a Budapest phonebook from 1944. Meir was looking for the carpentry shop where she used to work. Yet before…
The Latest
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Apatow and Stern Still Friends After Twitter Feud
If you’ve lost sleep over the “feud” between Howard Stern and Judd Apatow, rest easy. The Jewish comedy behemoths have buried the hatchet after a vicious Twitter smackdown supposedly sparked by Apatow’s criticism of Stern’s “America’s Got Talent” gig. Last Tuesday, Apatow tweeted, “I hate to say it but I don’t have much interest in…
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Why ‘Magic City’ Is Missing the Magic
Image courtesy of Starz/Greg Williams Here is a list of things that I like (and some that I love): Mad Men; “The Godfather Part II” villain Hyman Roth; “Bugsy,” “Once Upon a Time in America” and other visualizations of Jewish gangland; Miami Vice; Saul Bellow, Meyer Levin, and the early fiction of Bernard Malamud; Deborah…
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Shimon Peres’s DNA Could Help You Live Until 120
Whatever Israelis think of his politics, most agree that President Shimon Peres is a national wonder. At 88 he is the world’s oldest de-jure head of state, and seems to have endless energy. Just last night, he stood proud at the state’s Yom Hashoah event and told his own family’s story, movingly, with the energy…
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Out and About
Ruth Franklin tells us what we can learn from video footage of Anne Frank. Not everyone loves the new HBO show, “Girls.” NPR talks to Kazuo Ueda, author of the Yiddish-Japanese dictionary. Read our piece on Ueda and his work here. Cynthia Ozick has been shortlisted for this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction. Jason Diamond…
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Grumpy Frenchmen in the Holy Land
“Why do the wrong people travel when the right people stay back home?,” asked a Noël Coward song, but a century before such concerns, “le tout Paris” was eagerly visiting Jerusalem and reporting on what they had seen. “Exploring Palestine: 19th century French Travelers in the Holy Land”, published on September 29, 2011 by Les…
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Sassy on Stage
“Welcome, and thank you for flying El-Al,” a snarky flight attendant says through a tortured smile. After briefing us on the minimal safety precautions and talking us through the in-flight entertainment menu (“Don’t Mess with the Zohan” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” naturally), we are whisked away on Sivan Hadari’s jet-setting adventure of self-discovery. For…
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Mara Wilson Hated Being a Movie Star
Former child star Mara Wilson is letting people know that acting and celebrity are not all that they are cracked up to be. Us Weekly took note of a blog post that the now 24-year-old Wilson wrote in March on the subject and shared its main points with readers yesterday. Although many of us have…
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Thirty-One Films Compete for Israeli Academy Awards
Crossposted from Haaretz A record 31 feature films will compete for this year’s prestigious Ophir Awards, bestowed by the Israeli Academy of Film and Television. The films will compete for prizes in different categories, including the award for Best Film, the winner of which will represent Israel as a nominee for best foreign film at…
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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