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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Hackers Put Porn on Haredi Website
XBiz, a newswire for the adult entertainment industry, has reported that the Israel-based Haredi website Behadrei Hadarim was hacked during the night between December 12 and 13 by someone who replaced its usual content with pornography. The site (whose name means “in secret” or “in private” — perhaps an allusion to the fact that some…
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Ovadia Yosef Frees Man Who Tried to Kill Him
What would be your attitude toward someone who had plotted to kill you? I can’t help thinking that I’d be more than a little broiges. You would imagine that the stakes are upped a little when the target of the murder plot is the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of…
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Books Being Compared to Philip K. Dick
Earlier this week, Lavie Tidhar wrote about his fixation on historical figures. 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: Being compared to Philip K. Dick is great, especially when…
The Latest
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Gary Bilu, Israeli Theater Legend, Dies at 67
Crossposted from Haaretz Gary Bilu, the legendary head of Beit Zvi acting school and founder of the Be’er Sheva Theater, died Tuesday at the age of 67. Bilu, the recipient of the 2006 Israeli Theater Award for his life’s work, died at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv after a long illness. Bilu requested that his…
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Rare Glimpse Into American Dance
Michael Rice grew up hearing stories about his mother’s early life as a dancer in New York City, but they never meant all that much to him. “I paid attention, but it was just my mom…my brother and I had a different life,” the now adult Rice reflected. But when he and his wife Jane…
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Beard-Gate, a Matisyahu Shaving Roundup
Never in the field of human barbery has so much been written by so many, about so few… hairs. One shave and we’re Shmoozing, of course but we’re not only Shmoozing, we’re Thinking too. But it’s not only the Forward that has gone stark raving beard bonkers, over at religiondispatches.org they’ve taken some time off…
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Here Come the Hanukkah Videos
UPDATED DEC 15 “Dreidel’s my hobby / Don’t let it get wobbly” As Amy Klein feared the season of Hanukkah videos has begun. The new Maccabeats video featuring Mayim Bialik and Barack Obama is out (see below). Surely their boy band glow, Noah Jacobson jollities and Uri Westrich video mavening is really just a one…
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Design Contest: Rethink the Tzedakah Box
Remember that little cardboard or plastic (and if you are even older, metal) tzedakah box that you used to drop coins into at home or at Hebrew school? Well, so does the American Jewish World Service, which is using it as the inspiration for a new design competition to be launched in January. “Where Do…
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Putting the ‘Other’ in ‘Other Desert Cities’
In a Broadway season remarkable for its number of quality productions, Jon Robin Baitz’s brilliant “Other Desert Cities” stands a step above the rest. The play is set in 2004 in Palm Springs, where the Wyeth clan is in the midst of a troubled family reunion. Polly (Stockard Channing) and Lyman (Stacy Keach) are wealthy…
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School Called ‘Impure’ After Muslim Wedding
Parents of students who attend the public-religious Ohel Meir school in Afula in northern Israel are demanding that it be spiritually purified following a Muslim wedding that took place there. They are up in arms that the wedding was allowed to happen in the hall where the school’s Torah scrolls are kept, and are threatening…
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Matisyahu Shows Off Startling New Look
Reggae star Matisyahu has shaved his long beard, posted photos of his startling new look on Twitter, and is now saying that he is disavowing the Hasidic life he has led for the past decade. Tuesday morning, with the photos, he tweeted a somewhat cryptic line that seemed to explain at least part of his…
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