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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No Joke: Letterman Threatened by Jihadist Website
“Lowly Jew” David Letterman must die! That’s the pronouncement of jihadist website Shumukh al-Islam, which sentenced Letterman — a Protestant — to death because of a joke he made about the killing of Ilyas Kashmiri, a top al Qaeda official who died in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan. Shumukh al-Islam — which apparently watches late-night…
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Too Big For Broadway: ‘The Bible,’ the Musical
Coming soon to an arena near you: the Torah! A big-budget adaptation of the Old Testament will tour the United States starting in late 2012 or early 2013, reports entertainment website Deadline Hollywood. The show, simply called “The Bible,” is being helmed by Philip William McKinley, the director who stepped in to save the massively…
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Brother Daniel, Jew-Turned-Christian-Turned-Monk
Crossposted from Haaretz Daniel Stein, Interpreter: A Novel in Documents, by Ludmila Ulitskaya (translated from Russian by Arch Tait ) Overlook Duckworth, 416 pages, $27.95 In the struggle over definitions of Israeli and Jewish identity, Oswald Rufeisen, better known as Brother Daniel, was a pivotal figure. The case that Rufeisen (1922-1998 ) took to Israel’s…
The Latest
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Four Poems By Alicia Jo Rabins
Each Thursday, The Arty Semite features excerpts and reviews of the best contemporary Jewish poetry. This week, Jake Marmer introduces four poems by Alicia Jo Rabins. Songwriters who are also known as poets often only become so once they receive a degree of popular acclaim for their music. Cases in point include Bob Dylan and…
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Underground Speed Dating for Tu B’Av
There was romance in the air in — or, rather, below — Jerusalem earlier this week on Tu B’Av, often referred to as the Israeli Valentine’s Day. Youth for Jerusalem, an organization encouraging young, secular Israelis to stay in or move to Jerusalem, hosted a speed dating event last Sunday evening in Zedekiah’s Cave, an…
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Out and About: Philip Glass Signs a Book Deal; Was Wagner So Bad?
Woody Allen casts Rome’s real-life paparazzi as themselves. Washington Post music critic Anne Midgette defends Steve Reich’s controversial ‘WTC 9/11’ album cover. Ralph Branca’s mother was Jewish. So what? David P. Goldman wonders whether Wagner’s music should be banned in Israel. Meet Leah Caras, creator of Yaldah, a glossy teen magazine for Orthodox girls. Khaled…
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Howard Stern Calls Out Andy Dick For Anti-Semitic Remarks
Howard Stern knows a Dick when he sees one. The self-proclaimed King of All Media lashed out this morning at actor Andy Dick, who trotted out multiple anti-Semitic cliches during a rant against the radio host. Dick, whose TV credits include the sitcom ”News Radio,” described Stern as a “money-grubbing Jew” earlier this week on…
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A Widow’s Ongoing Quest To Expose BBC’s ‘Anti-Israel Bias’
Fiona Paveley is not letting her late husband Steven Sugar rest in peace, and she thinks that is exactly what he would have wanted her to do. In fact, she believes that he — and she — will ultimately rest easier if she does not give up the legal battle against the BBC that Sugar…
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Jewish Novels From the Finnish Saul Bellow
The modern history of Finland’s Jews, who during World War II fought on the Nazi side to combat the Russians, is genuinely surreal. It seems appropriate that the leading novelist of Finland’s tiny Jewish population — today estimated at around 1,500 people — should be equally expressive of a surrealist sensibility. Daniel Katz, born in…
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Four-Year-Old Wasn’t Deported From Israel, After All
Late last night, a 4-year-old girl named Ofek and her mother, Nancy, were taken off a plane at Ben-Gurion airport just as it was getting ready to take off for the Philippines. The two were not tourists planning a vacation to the Far East, but rather a family set to be deported from Israel. An…
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Sondheim’s ‘Porgy’ Complaints Come to the Fringe
There is exactly one perceptive sentence of dialogue in “Chasing Heaven,” now playing through August 26 at CSV Flamboyan as part of the 15th Annual New York International Fringe Festival. It comes rather late in the proceedings, when the two main characters, in grudging collaboration on a rewrite of a very familiar-sounding piece of iconic…
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