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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Social Justice Protestors Taking To Israeli Streets Again
Israel’s social protests are due to return to the streets tomorrow with a march, the first in just under two months. “On October 29, we young people need to take to the streets and demand a new national budget, and the social justice we deserve,” protestor May Turgeman said at a press conference in which…
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Oprah’s Mikveh Visit
Although Oprah Winfrey didn’t quite take the plunge, she did recently stop by a mikveh in Brooklyn Heights. Scouting locations to film segments for her new show, “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” which will air in January 2012 on OWN, she stopped in at Congregation B’nai Avraham. The program will show Oprah interviewing spiritual leaders around the…
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Books Murray Silverstein’s Metaphysical Chickens
Photo courtesy of Murray Silverstein One of my greatest poetic discoveries this year has been the work of Murray Silverstein, which I first encountered in the recently published book “Chapter & Verse: Poems of Jewish Identity.” Silverstein’s daytime gig is in architecture; he has written and co-written a number of books on the subject, including…
The Latest
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Shalit’s Lucky Dollar
Sometimes a dollar bill is not just a dollar bill. According to a report by Arutz 7/Israel National News, it can be a portent, as in the case of a certain dollar bill given to a woman 21 years ago by the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, along with a blessing. According to Chabad (the story’s original…
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Skelos Recalls Smuggling Aid to Soviet Jews
As New York State Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos volunteered in the Masbia soup kitchen on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn yesterday, he reminisced about having once smuggled religious items and medical supplies to Refuseniks in the Former Soviet Union. With Jewish terminology like “shul” easily tripping off his tongue, the Senator joked with…
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Tel Aviv Museum Gets Fancy New Wing
Crossposted from Haaretz Next week, Tel Aviv joins the long list of cities around the world with art museums in contemporary, state-of-the-art buildings. What started with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain in the late 1990s began a mushrooming global trend of investing in the architecture of cultural institutions. Bilbao turned from a sleepy industrial…
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Books Their (Our) Time Has Come
On Tuesday, Trina Robbins wrote about a Jewish woman who drew comics. Her 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: Last month I flew to Seattle to attend the first GeekGirlCon…
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Out and About
Vivian Gornick celebrates Emma Goldman’s revolutionary individualism. Leonard Cohen accepts the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters with one of the most moving acceptance speeches of all time. Israeli boxer Ilya Grad has become the first Israeli to enter Malaysia, in order to participate in a reality TV show about boxing. Nahma Sandrow watches Yiddish…
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Erwin Panofsky, Example in Letters and Life
The much-anticipated spring publication by Harrassowitz Verlag of the 5th and final volume of the correspondence of German Jewish art historian Erwin Panofsky is a cause for celebration. Devoted to the years 1962-1968 (Panofsky died in the latter year at age 75), it goes far to explain the continuing influence of the noted Hannover-born author…
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Toy Nazi Soldiers for Sale in Rome
Travelers preparing to take a train from Rome’s Termini Station can grab some food at a kiosk and pick up a magazine at a newsstand there. And while they’re at it, they can also buy for themselves some Nazi dolls as souvenirs of their stay in the Eternal City. Barak Talmor, an Israeli studying in…
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‘Rescuers’ Doc Ponders ‘Mystery of Goodness’
Film still courtesy of Menemsha Films The alternately heartwarming and heart wrenching documentary “The Rescuers,” about heroic non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, focuses on the role diplomats did — and can — play in saving victims of genocide. The film, screening October 27 at the Museum of Tolerance in New York and October…
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Yiddish קאָנצערט לכּבֿוד דעם ייִדישן שרײַבער און רעדאַקטאָר באָריס סאַנדלערConcert honoring Yiddish writer and editor Boris Sandler
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
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