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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Oscar Handlin, Writer of ‘History With a Difference’
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree There seems to be no end to the writing of history books. Kindles, Nooks and the corner bookshops are thick with them. So numerous are brand new histories of this, that and the other thing that they threaten to crowd out and supplant the work of previous generations. But…
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Books The Stories That Don’t Make It
Yesterday, Stuart Nadler wrote about casting off one’s sins. 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: At a certain point in the process, I had to do the cutting. Not…
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The Lions of Zion, Chapter 10
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 nine chapters here. Twentieth Century Limited About…
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Algeria and Jamaica, By Way of Golan Heights
Crossposted from Haaretz Brothers Hasan and Rami Nakhleh, from the Golan Heights Druze village of Majdal Shams, were raised on classical music. Classical Arab music, that is. Hassan studied Oriental violin. He can play, in their considerable entirety, works made famous by singers Umm Kulthum, Fairuz and other great “roots” musicians, as he calls them….
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Tony Blair Cozies Up To Divorcee Ofra Strauss
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been spending quite a bit of time in Israel since becoming the Quartet’s representative there. According to the Daily Mail (which in turn cites Maariv), the married Englishman has been spending a noticeable amount of that time with 51-year-old, twice-divorced Israeli “tycoon” Ofra Strauss. Blair has apparently known…
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Toronto Day School Blasts Shofar World Record
The students at Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto are tooting their own horns now that it looks like they have broken the world record for the largest shofar ensemble. Last week, the school’s community gathered together to blow 1,406 shofars simultaneously, shattering the prior record of 796 set in Boston in 2006. The new record…
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Nebuchadnezzar Becomes a Jew at the Met
Just in time for the High Holy Days, the Metropolitan Opera is bringing back its production of one of the few works of music that helped change history. “Nabucco” (Nebuchadnezzar), a wildly eccentric story inspired by the biblical Lamentations of Jeremiah, was Giuseppe Verdi’s first professional breakthrough, and it helped inspire the Risorgiomento, which ended…
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Was Obama’s ‘Jew Tax’ Gaffe a Freudian Slip?
What was that, Mr. President? You meant to say “janitor,” but out came “Jew.” Those words starting with the letter “J” can really trip you up. In a speech President Obama gave this past Saturday evening at the Congressional Black Caucus annual awards dinner in Washington, it seemed as though he was saying that there…
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Iran Hiker Josh Fattal’s Judaism Kept Secret
In an exclusive report, the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia has revealed that Josh Fattal, one of the two American hikers released from Iranian prison last week, is Jewish. This information had been purposely kept out of the press for the 26 months of his captivity for obvious reasons. Although local friends, acquaintances and rabbis in…
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Q&A: Elinor Carucci on Motherhood and Photos
In “Born,” a solo exhibition showing at the Sasha Wolf Gallery in New York through November 5, photographer Elinor Carucci presents intimate, at times unsettling, but always unflinchingly candid portraits of herself and her twin children. Born in Israel in 1971, Carucci started taking photographs at the age of 15. She moved to New York…
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Mossad Flooded With Applications After Arab Spring
Who said the Arab world has something against the Mossad? A wave of Arab volunteers has asked to join Israel’s spy agency, according to an article published in Sunday’s Yediot Aharanot. Under the headline “They All Want To Be Agents,” the newspaper reports that Israel’s foreign ministry has received “thousands” of e-mails since the start…
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish וואָס צוויי פּאָעטן האָבן געשריבן וועגן זייערע מאַמעסWhat these two Yiddish poets wrote about their mothers
מאַני לייב און ראַשעל וואַפּרינסקי, וואָס זענען יאָרן לאַנג געווען ראָמאַנטיש פֿאַרבונדן, באַשרײַבן ביידע דער מאַמעס פֿרומקייט.
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Fast Forward Brad Lander woos Jewish voters in NYC mayoral race with Talmud and Hebrew
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Fast Forward Trump administration condemns destructive pro-Palestinian protest at University of Washington
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Opinion 80 years after Germany surrendered, we’re still learning the real lessons of World War II
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