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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Books
Escaping the Past?
Earlier this week, James Patrick Kelly wrote about a man as puzzling as his stories and John Kessel examined Kafka and the parable. Today, Kelly discusses Sami Rohr Prize Winner Tamar Yellin and her story “Kafka in Bronteland.”Their blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council…
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Office Workers Face Sex-Segregated Elevators
Lots of people have claimed in recent weeks that gender segregation is reaching new heights. But never before has the charge been so, well, literal. Making your way up in an elevator should be, according to some members of the Haredi pro-segregation lobby, a single-gender affair. According to a press report signs have gone up…
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Books Tortured Soul of Joseph Roth
Philip will have to make room for another Roth. The irony is that Joseph Roth, a Galician-born Austro-Hungarian Jewish writer, dead for nearly three quarters of a century, has never been more alive in the English speaking world. Translator Michael Hofmann, whose gifted ear has graced 11 of Roth’s titles including the recently published “Joseph…
The Latest
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Out and About
Joseph Cedar’s film “Footnote” has been nominated for an Oscar in the foreign language category. Leonard Cohen has a poem in this week’s New Yorker. Joshua Cohen writes about smuggling a suitcase full of books to Berlin. A British publisher wants to reissue “Mein Kampf” in Germany, but the Bavarian copyright holders are having none…
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Jeff Goldblum To Play Gay Jewish Dad on ‘Glee’
“Glee” fans have long known about Rachel Berry’s gay Jewish dad, but they’ve never seen him. That’ll change on Valentine’s Day, when the character will finally make an appearance in the form of Jeff Goldblum, who’s been announced as one of two actors who’ll play Berry’s fathers. Goldblum’s TV spouse will be played by Broadway…
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Michael Moore Backs New Film on Resistance
Oscar winner Michael Moore has signed on to help an Israeli filmmaker produce his next documentary — a project that will focus, in part, on the small minority of Germans who defied the Nazis during World War II. Moore, who received an Academy Award for the 2002 documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” has agreed to match…
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Making the Bintel Brief New
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree I’m often asked how to go about extending the shelf life of yesteryear’s Jewish cultural treasures. It seems to me that studying them in class is one way to keep them fresh and evergreen. Another is through creative recycling. A lively, smart example of how to preserve Jewish culture…
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Books Albert Brooks on Thugs and Presidents
“I wanted to play a villain but couldn’t convince an American director,” Albert Brooks told an audience January 8, his curly hair framing a gentle cherubic face. The Film Society at Lincoln Center was honoring Brooks for his career, including his recent role as a psychopathic Jewish mafioso in the 2011 movie “Drive.” Given his…
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Books Kafka and the Parable
John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly are the editors of “Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka.” On Monday, James Patrick Kelly wrote about a man as puzzling as his stories and today, John Kessel looks at Kafka and the parable. Their blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the…
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One Woman Poetry Mafia
Crossposted from Haaretz Yarona Caspi’s interest in poetry “is a meeting of souls,” says the singer and artist in a conversation about her fourth and latest album, “Mafia Shel Isha Ahat” (“One-Woman Mafia”). It is an album on which she manages to bring together her intense personality and her awareness of the pop audience through…
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An ‘Honorary Jewish’ Novelist’s Homage
At 72, Italian novelist and Germanist Claudio Magris has many achievements, including critical writings on Kafka and Joseph Roth. One of his most lastingly admired books is a 1991 novel, “Un altro mare” (Another Sea), of which the French translation was reprinted in September from Folio/Gallimard. An ardently poetic, yet also skillfully calibrated fictional tribute…
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Art How the war changed an artist’s life, his politics — and his painting
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Opinion Critics of Trump’s US Holocaust Memorial Council firings run the risk of trivializing the cataclysm
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Opinion Netanyahu got his own son’s name wrong — was this a trivial mistake or a revealing Freudian slip?
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