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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Books
How the Eldridge Street Synagogue Was Saved
Crossposted From Samuel Guber’s Jewish Art & Monuments Beyond the Facade: A Synagogue, A Restoration, A Legacy: The Museum at Eldridge Street By Roberta Brandes Gratz, Larry Bortniker and Bonnie Dimun Museum at Eldridge Street and Scala Publishers, 176 pages, $45.00 In “Beyond the Facade,” a history of the almost 30-year effort to restore New…
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Lars von Trier’s ‘Melancholia’ Headed for Toronto Film Festival
Good news for crazy Danish director Lars von Trier, who definitely doesn’t admire Hitler: his latest film, “Melancholia,” will celebrate its North American premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Toronto screening will offer something of a fresh start for “Melancholia,” which temporarily stole the show at the Cannes Film Festival in…
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‘Shoemaker’ Drama Is Down at the Heels
Danny Aiello tells Alma Cuervo he can’t fix her shoes in ‘The Shoemaker.’ Photo by Ben Hider. The first act of Susan Charlotte’s “The Shoemaker,” directed by Anthony Marsellis and playing through August 14 at Theater Row’s Acorn Theater, wastes no time in establishing the symbolic level on which it will operate. The lights are…
The Latest
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The Future of Israeli Design
Crossposted from Haaretz What could possibly be done that is new at an exhibition of works of graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design visual communications department — especially after the successful exhibition curated last year by Yael Burstein in the same space? On the surface there is nothing revolutionary about what the…
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Q&A: Photographer Annie Ling on the Residents of 81 Bowery
Annie Ling The fourth floor of 81 Bowery, in New York’s Chinatown, is composed of narrow, ceiling-less cubicles that some 35 Chinese immigrants call home. After reading a Village Voice feature on the residence, photographer Annie Ling was inspired to capture the space and the hard-working men and women who inhabit it. The result was…
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Canadian Jewish Author Nominated for Man Booker Prize
Alison Pick, who won the Canadian Jewish Book Award earlier this year for her novel “Far to Go,” was longlisted today, along with 12 other writers, for the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Pick grew up not knowing that her father’s family was Jewish, and only learned the truth of her family’s history as…
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Larry David on How to Solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Courtesy of HBO The more Larry David pushes the envelope, the more his fans love him — and the more fans he seems to attract. That could help to explain the ratings bump for the July 24 installment of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” in which David mines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for laughs. The episode, the highest-rated…
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Iranian Swimmer Skips Race Against an Israeli
An allegedly anti-Israel boycott by an Iranian swimmer has set off a wave of recriminations in Israel. The episode started yesterday, when Iranian sprinter Mohammed Alirezaei, rather than compete against Israeli swimmer Gal Nevo, skipped a 100-meter breast stroke heat at the world swimming championships in Shanghai. Nevo, whose first name means “wave” in Hebrew,…
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The Lions of Zion, Chapter One
Ed. note: There has always been a strong connection between Jews and baseball, but what would have happened had there been a Jewish team in the Major Leagues? In an original novel serialized on The Arty Semite starting today, author Ross Ufberg imagines the trials and triumphs of “The Lions of Zion,” an all-Jewish team…
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Books The Strength of Judaism and the Courage of Social Justice
Eric Greitens‘s most recent book, “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL,” 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…
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Q&A: Zach Braff on Acting, Writing, JDate and Manischewitz
The cliché is that every actor wants to direct. Sometimes they try their hand at writing too, and turn out predictable stories about a character played by the author. Zach Braff, star of the TV show “Scrubs,” seemed to do that with his 2004 film “Garden State” — except that the movie was actually rich,…
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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