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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Animating Israel’s Housing Protests in Taiwanese
After approximately 450,000 Israelis turned out for massive protests in Tel Aviv, the rally didn’t just make the news. In Taiwan, it also made the animated news. Next Media Animation TV, a Taiwanese website that features crudely animated newscasts, has a new video up explaining the recent protests in both Taiwanese as well as a…
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Midrash Manicures: The Torah at Your Fingertips
Last week, The Shmooze reported on SpaMitzvah, a bodycare company whose new apples-and-honey based beauty products pay “homage to Rosh Hashanah.” Now, a Westchester County, N,Y., rabbi is adding her own gloss on the notion of Jewish glamor. Rabbi Yael Buechler has an unusual hobby: She paints her nails to correspond with a Torah portion,…
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Conductor James Levine to Sit Out at the Met
James Levine will withdraw from all performances at the Metropolitan Opera for the rest of the year following a fall while on vacation in Vermont, the New York Times reports. The noted conductor suffered a damaged vertebra and underwent emergency surgery on Thurday. Levine, who is musical director of the Met, announced his resignation as…
The Latest
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The Lions of Zion, Chapter Seven
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 six chapters here. Dress Up a Broom…
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Lauren Bush and David Lauren Wed in Jewish Ceremony
It was the society wedding of the season. There were plenty of boldfaced names, designer dresses — and a chuppah, too. Over Labor Day weekend, Lauren Bush — granddaughter of George H.W. Bush and niece of George W. Bush — married her longtime boyfriend, David Lauren, son of iconic fashion designer Ralph Lauren, in a…
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Books The ‘Feed Me Bubbe’ Book: Behind the Scenes at the Photoshoot
Avrom Honig is the co-author, with his bubbe, of “Feed Me Bubbe” — originally a hit YouTube series, and now a book. 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: Greetings,…
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Hanoch Levin’s Jokes About Death
Crossposted from Haaretz In the final scene of Hanoch Levin’s “The Suitcase Packers,” a comedy with eight funerals now revived at the Cameri, the surviving characters stand around “this cart” pulled by the gravedigger, holding the white-sheeted body of Henya Gerlenter. Her son Elhanan (Dror Keren, who has a Levinesque childish innocence) is possibly the…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Menachem Wecker examines the Jewishness of Rembrandt’s paintings of Jesus. Joseph Skibell travels to France to take a master class with guitar virtuoso Pierre Bensusan. Alexander Gelfand travels to Istanbul in search of the lost Jewish music of the Ottoman Empire. Phillip Lutz profiles 15-year-old Israeli jazz piano prodigy Gadi Lehavi. Philologos potchkies around.
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Albert Maysles Making Documentary About Style Icon Iris Apfel
How many 90-year-old women start designing their own fashion accessories line for the Home Shopping Network and get to be the subject of a new documentary by a renowned filmmaker? Not many. But then again, Iris Apfel is not your usual nonagenarian. In the sunset of her life Apfel, style icon and interior designer, has…
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In Song: Shoftim
Charles Foster, ‘The City of Refuge.’ Each week The Arty Semite connects the Torah reading — however tenuously — with a classic work of rock ‘n’ roll. This week’s parsha, Shoftim, deals with the setting up of a legal system, a monarchy (which is optional) and the role of a prophet. Then the laws dealing…
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Scarlett Johansson Endorses Jewish Candidate for NYC Mayor
The Jewish Scarlett Johansson is standing by her Jewish man – that man being not actor Justin Bartha, but rather Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. The 26-year-old actress and singer is putting her celebrity weight behind Stringer’s bid for mayor of New York in 2013. Observer.com’s Politicker NY reports that Johansson has said she has…
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