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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Out and About
Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s Holocaust film “In Darkness” has been nominated for an Academy Award in the foreign language category. Welcome to the Sundance synagogue. Yehoash’s classic Yiddish translation of the Bible is now available as a mobile app. Montreal’s Segal Centre for Performing Arts has appointed Audrey Finkelstein to head the Dora Wasserman Yiddish…
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RIP Etta James
Etta James — Miss Peaches — she of the effortlessly earthy voice that wrapped itself around any style, passed away aged 73 on January 20, after a long struggle with illness. Born Jamesetta Hawkins on January 25, 1938 she moved from singing at her Baptist Church in Los Angeles to singing with Johnny Otis at…
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Friday Film: Message in a Bottle to Gaza
I imagine a movie that is even-handed about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will enrage people at the extremes. If so, the French produced film “A Bottle in the Gaza Sea,” screening January 22 and 23 at the New York Jewish Film Festival, could create a battle royale among American Jews, even though its provocations are measured….
The Latest
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Haim Amsallem Launches Moderate Haredi Party
One of the most remarkable things about covering Israeli politics is watching parties come and go. People have an amazing willingness to support a brand new party with no track record. Earlier this month Yair Lapid, journalist and icon of secular middle-class Israelis, announced he was entering politics. As the Forward reported, before he even…
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Books Defining Kafkaesque
Earlier this week, James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel wrote about a man as puzzling as his stories, Kafka and the parable, and Tamar Yellin’s “Kafka in Bronteland.” Today, Kessel examines the Kafkaesque structure. Their blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish…
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DSK’s Wife To Head French HuffPo
Perhaps in an attempt to put her husband’s very public sexual assault scandal behind her, Anne Sinclair is throwing herself into her work. The former television journalist and wife of Dominque Strauss-Kahn has been named editor of the soon-to-be-launched French version of the Huffington Post. Ariana Huffington herself will be on hand in Paris on…
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Tannhäuser and the Jews
Three central Jewish thinkers, Heinrich Heine, Theodor Herzl, and I. L. Peretz were all profoundly inspired by the medieval legend of Tannhäuser, a knight and poet who worshipped the goddess Venus. Herzl and Peretz were also fans of the 1845 opera based on this legend, by the notoriously anti-Semitic Richard Wagner. This paradox is explored…
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Q&A: Taking Ai Weiwei to Sundance
Having grown up in suburban Philadelphia, born to a Yiddish-speaking mother, Alison Klayman is a surprising conduit for China’s most famous dissident artist. In between many jobs, including writing for this newspaper (and interviewing the Chinese about their knowledge of Jews and Judaism before the influx of visitors for the 2010 Olympics, for JTA), she…
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Newly Delighted by ‘The Book of Delights’
A doctor and the Angel of Death both kill, but the former charges a fee. Never send for a doctor, for one cannot expect a miracle to happen. A Jewish doctor wrote the above ironic observations, a remarkable 12th century Barcelona-born author named Joseph Zabara. The sole surviving work by Zabara is “Sefer Sha’ashu’im” (“The…
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Hitler Bunker To Become Tourist Stop
It looks as though there might be another site added to the Polish Holocaust tourism trail. According to Reuters, Poland is searching for someone to spruce up the Wolf’s Lair, in the northeast of the country, near the Russian border, and open it up to the public. “Wolf’s Lair” was the code name for Adolf…
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Jewish Billionaire Owns Sunken Cruise Ship
An old joke used to blame the Titanic disaster on the Jews because of the “Iceberg.” But in the case of this week’s sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, there actually is a Jewish connection. According to JTA, Jewish billionaire Micky Arison is the owner of the capsized luxury liner. The Israeli-American businessman is…
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