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
The world’s oldest Holocaust museum, in London, is moving to a new home. Nicolas Cage showed up at a Chabad fundraiser in Alaska. Tablet magazine ranks the top 100 Jewish films. Shulem Deen contemplates whether a Native American chant at a Rainbow Gathering can replace the Hasidic gatherings of his youth. Philip Glass joined an…
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Slideshow: Maurice Sendak’s Hanukkah Lamps
Maurice Sendak is best known as a writer and illustrator of children’s books, most famously, “Where the Wild Things Are,” and more recently, “Bumble-Ardy,” published this year. Sendak, who was born to Polish Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn and lost much of his family in the Holocaust, also illustrated Isaac Bashevis Singer’s children’s story “Zlateh the…
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SATIRE: Netanyahu Orders Campaign Stopped
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his country’s Ministry of Defense to immediately shut down its campaign of moving Israelis into the territory of the future Palestinian state. This week, the Jewish Federations of North America called the settlements “insulting,” and the head of the Anti-Defamation League said they were “demeaning.” This reporter just…
The Latest
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TV Director Charles Dubin’s Sweet Revenge
The director Charles S. Dubin, who died on September 5 at age 92, was a showbiz survivor who got himself and his family through the entertainment industry blacklist era. Born in 1919 on Hart street “in the slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn” to a Russian Jewish family, as Dubin proudly told a 2003 interviewer, he sang…
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An Unscripted Moment With Stephen Sondheim
Last night, as a performance of “An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin” drew to a close, one of those unscripted, magical moments on Broadway unfolded before an appreciative crowd at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. As the audience cheered wildly and applauded the veteran stars for their musical theater revue of songs from such…
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Will These Two Women Make the ‘Amazing Race’ Cut?
The Shmooze can’t imagine why the producers of “The Amazing Race” wouldn’t choose Lindsay Litowitz and Stephanie Spiegel to be among the show’s next contenders. How could they possibly resist these two attractive, vibrant young Jewish women from South Florida (Litowitz now lives in New York, Spiegel is in Miami), who have submitted this adorable…
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Friday Film: Lost on the Way to the Witness Stand
“Testimony” is the rare movie that contains all the building blocks of an aesthetically powerful political statement, only to fall short in its execution. Put plainly, “Testimony” — which recently screened at the Haifa International Film Festival and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival — amounts to a good deal less than the sum…
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Israeli Producer Nominated for Grammy Award
Brooklyn-based Israeli-American producer Jonathan Dagan’s J.Viewz multi-genre electronic music project has been nominated for a 2012 Grammy Award. Dagan is being recognized in the Best Recording Package category for J.Viewz’s latest album, “Rivers and Homes.” Dagan collaborates with diverse musicians and vocalists in the studio, creating a unique blend of Breakbeat, Jazz, Folk, Old-Nu Wave,…
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Red Hot Chili Peppers (Finally) Perform in Israel
It took more than a decade, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers have finally found a “more suitable time” to perform in Israel. The band, which received a Grammy nomination yesterday for best rock album, will play in Tel Aviv next September in support of its latest release, “I’m With You.” The show will take…
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How Do You Say Turkey in Ge’ez?
Thanksgiving is often considered the most American of holidays, perhaps second only to the Fourth of July. Nothing speaks more to American culture and values than celebrating the religious tolerance generations of immigrants sought on U.S. shores, or the creation of a land of plenty, by eating helping after helping of turkey, stuffing and cranberry…
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Meir Dagan Makes ‘Top Global Thinkers’ List
High-tech geniuses, remarkable thinkers, and Nobel Prize winning scientists — Israel has them all. But seemingly none of them need as much brainpower as one who can put the brakes on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So says Foreign Policy magazine. Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan ranks number 63 in the list of its “top global…
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Fast Forward In Tenafly, NJ, a crowd awaits the release of local son Edan Alexander from Hamas captivity
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