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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Oliver Stone’s Son Converts to Islam
In what sounds like a plot twist from one of his famous father’s films, 27-year-old Sean Stone — Oliver’s offspring — has reportedly converted to Islam on a trip to Iran. According to the Tehran Times, the younger Stone, himself an aspiring director, underwent the conversion while attending the 30th Fajr International Film Festival, which…
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Books The Ghost
Earlier this week, Leigh Stein revealed one of her early aspirations: to “Be Anne Frank.” Her blog posts are being featured this week 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 fascination with New Mexico began in…
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Fran Drescher To Marry Gay Couples
Now that Fran Drescher is happily divorced from a gay man and has a TV Land series called — wait for it —“Happily Divorced” about (surprise!) a woman divorced from a gay man, the ex-Nanny is ready to marry some gay people. Don’t misunderstand. Drescher is not interested in wedding any more gay men herself,…
The Latest
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Gal Beckerman Wins the Sami Rohr Prize
The top award of the highly coveted Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature 2012 has gone to Gal Beckerman, the Forward’s opinion editor and author of the universally acclaimed “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry.” (Winner of the 2010 National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Book…
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Lesbian Tearoom Before Its Time
MacDougal Street today can hardly be described as paradise. Crammed with NYU students jostling for falafel, or the bridge-and-tunnel crowd fighting for a seat at Panchito’s, it’s difficult to picture the street as a hub of subversion and artistry. But once upon a time, it was. In the 1920s, a Polish Jewish lesbian immigrant named…
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Circumcise Your Nose
The trouble with living in a logorrheoic country at a time when speech is free, public and almost unashamedly unfiltered is that the careful observations of the geniuses who made it possible seem asinine. Case in point: Sigmund Freud. Sifting through the occasional secretions of the tightly sealed and private lips of the Viennese bourgeoisie…
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Couple Becomes Oldest Ever To Make Aliyah
Philip and Dorothy Grossman could think of no better way to show their love for each other, their family and for Israel than to make aliyah this Valentine’s Day. The husband and wife, ages 95 and 93 respectively, are the oldest couple to have ever immigrated to Israel. The Baltimore couple, married 71 years, were…
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The World’s Top 10 Jewish Films
After he reviewed Lawrence Baron’s “The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema,” we asked contemporary Jewish film scholar Nathan Abrams for his choice of the best recent Jewish films. Below are his choices (in no particular order) of films over the last few decades that have made a significant impact in challenging stereotypes worldwide. “La…
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‘Napoleon Dynamite’ Makes Fun of Birthright
Apparently there’s been a “Napoleon Dynamite” animated TV show on Fox for a month now, and I had no idea. Well, my ignorance is justified. Writing shortly after the first episode aired on January 15, The New Yorker movies editor Richard Brody argued that “the results are just a pastiche; the cartoons take the characters…
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Kate Middleton Goes Hasidic Chic
Just last week we were treated to a provocative fashion spread in Israel’s Belle Mode magazine that was both inspired by and meant to protest the exclusion of women in the public sphere. In it, the models struck sexy poses, wearing ultra-Orthodox garb, in a vintage bus. As highly unlikely as the scenes in those…
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From Shtetl to Stage to Screen
“It’s Hollywood in the shtetl.” That’s how playwright Nicholas Wright summed up his new play, “Travelling Light,” now at London’s National Theatre. He pretty much hit the nail on the head with this pithy description as he spoke to the audience in a talkback following the production’s worldwide simulcast on February 9. Imagine “Fiddler on…
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