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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Never Mind Bismarck, Listen to Grünfeld
Who left more of a legacy to mankind, a German chancellor or a Jewish pianist? At the end of January, excited headlines announced that a previously unknown 1889 recording of the voice of Prussian ruler Otto von Bismarck was discovered by a scholar digging in the archives of sound pioneer Thomas Edison. An overlooked find…
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Friday Film: A Radical Experiment in Dating
“2 night” is a rich, complex film based on two simple premises. The first is the sheer impossibility of finding a parking space in Tel Aviv at 2 a.m. on a weekend. The second is an experiment in dating without pretense: What if, when two people embarked on a relationship, they showed their true colors…
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Books Keeping Doubt Alive
Earlier this week, Eric Weiner wrote about carrots, fish, and Jewish souls and the pleasures of spiritual travel. His blog posts have been 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: Like most people, I…
The Latest
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Reform Leader Gunther Plaut Dies at 99
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, Senior Scholar at Holy Blossom Temple, died February 8 in Toronto at the age of 99. Holy Blossom, a Reform Synagogue, is the oldest congregation in Canada’s largest city. Rabbi Plaut was the longtime senior rabbi there, from 1961 to 1977. Plaut was born in Munster, Germany, the son of Jonas…
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Madonna Fans To Bibi: Hold Off On Iran Strike
Madonna’s upcoming concert in Tel Aviv, or the Iranian nuclear crisis: Which is more important? The answer is obvious to some of the Queen of Pop’s Israeli fans. Confident that they have their priorities straight and that their cause is just, Madonna fans are pleading with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on striking…
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Neurologist and Anti-Nazi Partisan Davide Schiffer
The French Jewish neuropsychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Boris Cyrulnik has written widely about the importance of “Creative Disobedience” and how when faced by the Nazis, badly-behaved children often had more useful survival strategies than polite, well-trained ones. The eminent Italian neurologist Davide Schiffer has produced a memoir of his own war years, underlining the truth…
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‘Chewish’ Dog Toys (What’s Next?)
There’s a Yiddish for Dogs manual, and — as the Forward recently reported — a rescue dog who understands Yiddish commands. Now, in the latest development around canine Yiddishkeit, a Brooklyn company has unveiled a Semitic series of plush toys for pets, all inspired by Yiddish words. Copa Judaica’s “Chewish” line includes Facachta The Platypus;…
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Couture as Comedy and Conflict Resolution
Photo by Neta Alonim The iconography of fashion is perhaps not the most obvious tool with which to parse the complexities of the Middle East. Still, everything else seems to have failed; more to the point, style does shares a common vocabulary. So, why not? “InSALAAM, InSHALOM,” a fashion collection and multimedia exhibit curated by…
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Oprah Chats With Hasidic Families
Back in October, The Shmooze mentioned that Oprah Winfrey had been sighted visiting a mikveh in Brooklyn. Now, this coming Sunday, we will get to see exactly what she was up to amid the Hasidim. That is when the “First Look: America’s Hidden Culture” episode of the “Oprah’s Next Chapter” show will air on Winfrey’s…
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Whither the Jewish Violinist?
Crossposted from Haaretz Pinchas Zuckerman, Itzhak Perlman and Shlomo Mintz are more than just great Israeli violinists. They are also symbols — proof that the legendary Russian-Jewish tradition has continued in Israel. This tradition — which produced virtuosos such as Jascha Heifetz, Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern — has brought the world great Jewish musicians…
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Out and About
Jason Diamond writes for The New York Times about the curse of having once been a barista. R. Crumb and Will Eisner are among 130 illustrators creating a three-volume graphic novel version of the western canon. The latest short story by Robert Walser in the New York Review of Books describes the author’s favorite Berlin…
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Most Popular
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News Exclusive: ADL chief compares student protesters to ISIS and al-Qaida in address to Republican officials
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Opinion Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla was never going to help Palestinians
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News A Jewish farmer drove 600 miles to rescue a century-old synagogue. Now he’s building a new one in a cornfield.
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Culture I ranked the NYC mayoral candidates exclusively based on their bagel orders
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish טשיקאַוועסן: ייִדישע באַפֿעלקערונג איבער דער וועלט כּמעט 15 מיליאָן נפֿשותTidbits: Jewish world population is nearly 15 million
96 פּראָצענט פֿון די ייִדן איבער דער וועלט וווינען אין בלויז צען לענדער
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Fast Forward Federal judge orders Mahmoud Khalil to be released by Friday on $1 bond
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Fast Forward California ICE protests spark calls for ‘nonviolence’ from Jewish community leaders
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Fast Forward Outrage ensues after a Long Island high school study guide calls Zionism ‘extreme nationalism’
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