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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Memo to Rubberneckers: Pray, Don’t Look
It is an international problem, only accentuated here by Israeli curiosity — or what in America is called nosiness. Whenever there is a road accident, traffic slows as people peer to see what’s going on. Everyone knows deep down that it’s unhelpful, but everyone just wants to know what is happening. And nobody has found…
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Pioneering Social Worker Alice Salomon
Alice Salomon, born in 1872 in Berlin to an assimilated Jewish family, was one of the great pioneers of modern social work, called during her lifetime “The Jane Addams of Germany,” referring to the saintly American founder of Chicago’s Hull House. After writing a turn-of-the-century doctoral dissertation on why women are paid lower salaries than…
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Does Your Dog Deserve a ‘Bark Mitzvah’?
It is with mixed feelings that the Shmooze brings you this latest development in dubious religious trends: the rise of bar mitzvahs for dogs. While not exactly mainstream, the ceremonies, known as “bark mitzvahs,” are apparently now a rite of passage for some Jewish dog owners and their pets, part of what the Associated Press…
The Latest
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Books Life and Afterlife of William Carlos Williams
Something Urgent I Have to Say to You: The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams By Herbert Leibowitz Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 528 pages, $40.00 William Carlos Williams was a second-rate poet. Was. These days, of course, he’s a towering figure of American modernism, the heir to Walt Whitman, the godfather of myriad schools…
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Vermont Legislator Takes Birthright Trip
Kesha Ram, a Vermont State Representative, recently visited Israel for the first time — but not on the kind of Israel trip most American legislators take. The 25 year old (who happens to be the youngest state legislator in the country right now) went on a free Taglit-Birthright Israel experience together with other people her…
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Auschwitz Photo Used in Health Club Ad
It’s not just Haredi Jews who have offended many this past week by using — or rather, abusing — Holocaust imagery. A news outlet in the United Arab Emirates reported that a Dubai health club put out a promotional poster with a picture of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, with the tag line: “Kiss your…
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Poetry on Demand
On Tuesday, Jake Marmer wrote about poems as a noisy Mediterranean duplex. His 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: Reputedly, Rachmaninoff once said: “There’s no such thing as inspiration….
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Out and About
This month marks the 70th anniversary of the infamous Wannsee Conference, where the Nazis arrived at the Final Solution. Germany has a brand-new English-language Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Voice From Germany. Photographer Aaron Weiner (featured on The Arty Semite here) talks about “Cycles of Violence,” his photo-collage response to 9/11. The Brooklyn Museum displays early…
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Books Sex and Scandal in Nazi Berlin
In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin By Erik Larson Crown, 464 pages, $26.00 It is just about impossible to find a negative review of Erik Larson’s latest bestselling book, “In the Garden of Beasts,” about American ambassador William Dodd and his family in 1930s Berlin. The worst…
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Tel Aviv Museum Ordered To Provide Arabic Signs
Crossposted from Haaretz Culture Minister Limor Livnat announced Wednesday that she had ordered the Tel Aviv Museum of Art to install signs in Arabic by the end of February, after a Haaretz probe last week revealed that half of the Israeli museums required to provide visitors with Arabic explanations fail to do so despite government…
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Getting to Know Cartoonist Georges Wolinski
The French Jewish cartoonist Georges Wolinski has long entertained his compatriots with drawings spoofing romance and sexuality, as well as making serious points about politics and society. In collections such as “Everything is Politics” (Tout est politique) from Les editions Temps actuels and “The Right-Wing Plan” (Le Programme de la droite) Wolinski offers merciless caricatures…
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