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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Too Cute! Baby Giraffe Born in Israel
Crossposted from Haaretz A joyous occasion took place at the Ramat Gan Safari on Monday, as one of the safari’s female giraffe’s gave birth to a healthy baby boy, after a lengthy and complicated labor. Dikla began birthing the baby giraffe at 1 P.M., when chief safari veterinarian Yigal Horowitz noticed that the process was…
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Books Why Vasily Grossman Still Matters
“Life and Fate,” the 900-page opus by Vasily Semyonovich Grossman, is important not only as literature, but also as a history of Stalinist Russia. Since 2006 it has been available as a paperback from NYRB Classics, recently turned into a radio play on U.K.’s BBC 4, and a newly minted paperback can now be found…
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Video: ‘West Side Story’ Flash Mob in Times Square
If you happened to see some Jets and Sharks dancing in the middle of Times Square last week, rest assured that you were not hallucinating. The flash mob you saw was a group of New York City dancers performing some moves choreographed by Jerome Robbins for “West Side Story.” The flash mob was organized by…
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The Lions of Zion, Chapter 17
What would have happened had there been a Jewish team in the Major Leagues? In an original novel serialized on The Arty Semite, Ross Ufberg imagines the trials and triumphs of The Lions of Zion, an all-Jewish team competing in the National League in 1933. Read the first 16 chapters here. A Trick Play The…
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Pyramid Closed to Foil ‘Jewish Plot’ in Egypt?
Did Egypt close its Great Pyramid last week over fears of a “Jewish” plot? That’s one of the rumors circulating in Cairo after the country’s antiquities authority cut off access to the Cheops pyramid Friday. Local media had put out “unconfirmed reports” that unnamed groups planned to perform “Jewish” or “Masonic” rites at the pyramid…
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Bringing French Poems to Pop
Crossposted from Haaretz Riff Cohen’s sweet and infectious new French pop song, “A Paris,” has been gaining popularity and radio exposure, mostly thanks to the video clip Cohen directed herself in Paris in collaboration with Ravid Kahalani, founder of the “Yemen Blues” project. Cohen, 27, is a francophone Tel Avivian. She is the daughter of…
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Curly Locks and Pocket Watches of Henri Herz
As CD releases celebrate 19th century Jewish romantic composers such as Ignaz Moscheles, Jakob Rosenhain and Edouard Wolff, the time to rediscover the composer/pianist/piano manufacturer Henri Herz may finally be here. Born Heinrich Herz in Vienna to a Jewish family, he composed gracious high-society music which has been recorded by recent keyboard notables such as…
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Holocaust-Denying Radio Host Gets His Job Back
A German radio host who allegedly made Holocaust-denying remarks and also made light of 9/11 has been reinstated to his position after having been temporarily suspended. Ken Jebsen, the host of the “Jugendwelle” program on Radio Fritz, which is based in Potsdam just outside Berlin, had written in an email to a listener that “Hitler’s…
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Gay Orthodox Rabbi Does Same-Sex Marriage
Roee Ruttenberg reported over the weekend in +972 Magazine that “for the first time in history an openly-gay American rabbi ordained by the Orthodox movement has officiated at a same-sex wedding ceremony.” He was referring to a Jewish marriage ceremony that Rabbi Steve Greenberg performed for gay couple Yoni Bock and Ron Kaplan at the…
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Monday Music: Down Home Brooklyn
Photo courtesy of Andy Statman The version of “The Lord Will Provide” on “Old Brooklyn,” Andy Statman’s virtuosic two-CD excursion through all manners of American and Jewish music, struck me as unusual, and not just because the voice and clarinet duet is spine-tinglingly powerful. It’s more because the 18th-century hymn, written by James Newton —…
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New Bible Museum To Be Built in Jerusalem
Crossposted from Haaretz A Bible museum that will include a sculpture garden featuring biblical characters and exhibits showing what daily life was like in biblical times will be built in the Jerusalem area, the cabinet decided in a unanimous vote on Sunday. “It’s absurd that in the land of the Bible, there is no center…
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