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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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Jenna Weissman Joselit looks at Reconstructionist founder Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s efforts to get rid of Kol Nidrei. Sarah Breger goes to see the Jew-tastic cancer comedy “50/50.” Philologs responds to a South African judge, who inquires whether a woman of valor is like rubies, pearls, or maybe coral. Amy Klein provides us with Anthony Weiner’s…
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The Madness of Cultural Historian Aby Warburg
The creative legacy of the Hamburg-born Jewish cultural historian Aby Warburg, born Abraham Moritz Warburg to a family of German bankers, still thrives. When London’s Warburg Library was threatened last fall with dispersal, a general outcry was heard to preserve the documentation first gathered by Warburg, who died in 1929, and later augmented by his…
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‘Customizing’ Yom Kippur To Make Room for Football
His commitment to Judaism — and college football — is impressive. For the second time in recent years, Nebraska football fan Joel Alperson is taking extraordinary measures to observe the High Holy Days, and to ensure Jewish fans don’t miss a moment of the Cornhuskers’ season. Omaha resident Alperson is flying New York City Rabbi…
The Latest
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Does Yom Kippur Unite or Divide?
Does Yom Kippur in Israel unite or divide the country’s Jewish population? Gesher, a nonprofit that promotes religious-secular dialogue, believes that a poll it just commissioned with Ynet shows the holiday’s unifying function. The poll found that 58% of Israeli Jews plan to fast. Taking a closer look at the figure for fasting, that means…
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Yom Kippur Confession: The Shmooze Was Wrong About Hank Williams, Jr.
Hours before Yom Kippur seems like an appropriate time for the Shmooze to admit it got something wrong. On Tuesday, we predicted that ESPN would drop Hank Williams, Jr.’s “Monday Night Football” theme song for just one week after the singer compared President Obama to Hitler on Fox News. (In the same interview, Williams likened…
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Books Werner Sombart: Portrait of an Anti-Semite
Earlier this week, Ned Beauman wrote about Oscar Panizza and Henry Ford. His debut novel, “Boxer, Beetle” (Bloomsbury), is now available. His 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: Can an…
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Friday Film: Iraq, Israel, and Rock ‘n’ Roll
Courtesy of Ruth Diskin Films An intergenerational connection through music is at the heart of “Iraq n’ Roll,” a new Israeli documentary by Gili Gaon, which screened this year at the Jerusalem International Film Festival and is out on DVD next month. In the 1950s, brothers Saleh and Daoud Al-Kuwaity made aliyah to Israel. They…
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Video Message to Gilad Shalit: ‘We’re Sorry’
As Yom Kippur nears, Gilad Shalit’s father Noam and others are publically asking the captured IDF soldier for forgiveness. They tell Shalit they are sorry in a video made by two Sam Spiegel Film & Television School students on-site at the Gilad Shalit vigil tent outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem’s Rechavia neighborhood. “Gilad,…
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Is Dan Shechtman Artistic as Dylan or Philip Roth?
So rumored honorees Bob Dylan and Philip Roth were shut out of the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. “Zol zein mit mazel,” as the Yiddish equivalent of “Don’t worry, be happy” goes. The newly-announced crop of recipients by the Nobel Committee includes an indisputably worthy and artistically inspiring awardee in the field of Chemistry,…
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Books Q&A: Poet Elinor Nauen on Writing Ottava Rima for Derek Jeter
Elinor Nauen is Manhattan’s unofficial poet laureate of cars and baseball. Her newest book, “So Late Into the Night,” is a rollicking road trip on the model of Byron’s “Don Juan,” with over 600 stanzas of ottava rima about Derek Jeter (her non-Platonic obsession), road trips, her husband, morning minyan and herself. Nauen chatted with…
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Mubarak for ‘Man of 5771’?
The Egyptian newspaper Al-masry Al-youm took note of the fact that an Israeli journalist has suggested that ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak be named Israel’s Man of the Year (with “year” meaning the recently departed 5771). Political correspondent Udi Segal apparently said on air during a Channel 2 evening news broadcast that “Mubarak symbolizes the…
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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