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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Natalie Portman To Produce New ABC Show
Though actress Natalie Portman has hinted that she might retire to be a full-time stay-at-home mom to little Aleph Portman-Millepied, she definitely hasn’t quit show business completely. It was recently announced that Portman will executive produce a new TV series that will be a follow-up to the 1980s miniseries, “Scruples,” about a wealthy Boston family….
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Slideshow: Leon Bibel’s Artworks for Social Justice
The Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration is well known for having supported artists such as Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston and Mark Rothko, and for having helped produced some of the most significant American artworks of the 20th century. One of the less-known WPA artists was Leon Bibel (1913-1995), a painter, printmaker and…
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Carnegie Deli Names Sandwich After Judy Gold
Comedian Judy Gold is following in the footsteps of Henny Youngman and Woody Allen, with a Carnegie Deli sandwich named in her honor. Gold, who’s starring in the one-woman, off-broadway show “The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom,” provided inspiration for the Gold E. Lox (get it?) — a bagel with cream cheese, lox,…
The Latest
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Bob Dylan’s Asia Paintings Go on View in New York
While you have to admire Bob Dylan’s persistent touring now that he’s in his 70s, even die-hard fans admit that the singer-songwriter’s voice is pretty much shot. If you’re not likely to get much aesthetic pleasure out of a Dylan concert these days, however, there are other ways to appreciate his recent work. Starting today,…
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Introducing the ‘Jewish al-Jazeera’
Jewish news junkies will be pleased to know that they will very soon be able to get TV news covering Israel and the Jewish world 24/7. On September 21, Jewish News 1 will go on the air and reach viewers in North America, Europe and the Middle East via satellite. The network is already being…
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The ‘Christian Jew’ Who Told the Truth About the Holocaust
Jan Karski with a wall-map of the Warsaw Ghetto at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Photo by E. Thomas Wood. Fiction has a long history of trying to negotiate its way into and around atrocity. So, we sometimes forget, does fact. Knowing that something unbelievable is true does not make us more able to…
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Why Are Some People Born Without Fingerprints?
With all the heightened security and anti-terrorism measures in place these days, we are all pretty sick of bureaucratic problems at border crossings. But people with “Immigration Delay Disease,” however, face a unique challenge when traveling from one country to another. Those with “Immigration Delay Disease” (its scientific name is adermatoglyphia) have no fingerprints. In…
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David Guetta, Morrocan-Jewish Producer to the Stars
Crossposted from Haaretz It is just as well that David Guetta, the child of a Moroccan-Jewish restaurateur in France, chose not to take over the family business. Thanks to that fateful decision Guetta turned into one of the most sought-after producers in the world. His main contribution is to the pop sound that currently dominates…
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The Lions of Zion, Chapter Nine
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 eight chapters here. Cincinnati Hanky Panky It…
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‘Rachel Corrie’ Controversy Comes to LA
The controversy surrounding “My Name is Rachel Corrie” has followed the play to Los Angeles. The one-woman show, starring Samara Frame as the 23-year-old American activist who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, opened this month at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, an outdoor theater space in Topanga Canyon. According to artistic director…
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iTunes Classifies Jewish Music as Christian
It looks like iTunes must have been snoozing during Comparative Religions 101. The Jerusalem Post found that the world’s largest online music and video vendor doesn’t seem to know the difference between Jewish and Christian music. Or maybe it just doesn’t care. The newspaper reported that it found most popular Jewish singers’ songs and albums…
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Opinion This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective
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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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Fast Forward Trump’s new pick for surgeon general blames the Nazis for pesticides on our food
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Fast Forward Jewish feud over Trump escalates with open letter in The New York Times
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