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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Ulysses S. Grant’s Washington Synagogue
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments On a few previous occasions I have mentioned visits of heads of state to synagogues. One of the most significant such occasions in American history was the visit 135 years ago of President Ulysses S. Grant to the dedication of the new synagogue in the national capital…
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What To Make of Lenin’s Jewish Grandfather
Lenin, his sister said, “always thought highly of the Jews” — and with good reason, since he apparently had Jewish ancestry. That, at least, is the claim being put forward at a recently opened exhibit at the State Historical Museum in Moscow, where the founding ruler of the Soviet Union is revealed to have had…
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Pro-Israel Screenwriter Founds ‘Mike Leigh Scholarship for Political and Moral Courage’
While visiting the Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem this week to co-teach a workshop with fellow Hollywood screenwriter David N. Weiss, Dan Gordon used the opportunity to take his public critique of British filmmaker Mike Leigh one step further. Gordon followed up on a promise he made Leigh in an…
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‘Goy’: A Transgendered, Genetically Modified Goat
You thought “goy” is a derogatory word for a non-Jew? Incorrect. It actually means “genetically modified goat” — at least in New Zealand, where scientists are using the term to refer to a new breed of the animal. The goats, presumably gentiles, are described as “transgender,” and are part of an experiment to see whether…
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Traveling the Length and Breadth of ‘Yiddishland’
Photo by Spencer Ritenour In his 2006 study “Adventures in Yiddishland: Postvernacular Language and Culture,” Rutgers University professor Jeffrey Shandler noted the strange phenomenon in which musicians have become some of the most well-known authorities on Yiddish culture. “Marginal figures in East European Jewish society before World War II, klezmorim are now prominent cultural spokespeople,…
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Facebook Revolutions: The Great Israeli Cottage Cheese Boycott?
While the Arabs are organizing historic political uprisings on Facebook, Israelis are using the social networking website to protest the high price of cottage cheese. Fed up with the nearly NIS 8 price for a 250 g container of the popular dairy food (it accounts for 28% of all cheese sales in Israel), consumer groups…
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Natalie Portman Welcomes Baby Boy
Mazel tov to Natalie Portman, the new mother of a baby boy. Details remain scarce about the arrival of the infant, who was delivered less than a week after his mom’s 30th birthday. The actress plans to marry the baby’s French father, dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied, later this year. The pair met on the…
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Q&A: Joey Weisenberg and the Hazan of the Future
Joey Weisenberg, 29, is the musical director at the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn and is in charge of musical education at Yeshivat Hadar in Manhattan. He plays guitar, mandolin and percussion and sings in 10 different bands, is an artist-fellow at the 14th Street Y’s LABA program and a faculty member at KlezKanada. He…
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Broadcasts From Another World
Crossposted from Haaretz Sounds from another world, at a very low volume and of terrible audio quality, welcome the visitor to Nino Bitton’s small apartment. They sound like broadcasts from an ancient Arab world, which has long since ceased to exist outside isolated enclaves like this Jerusalem living room. What are we listening to? “Algerian…
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Jerusalem Gets Its Own American Academy
The American Academy in Jerusalem — newly established by the Foundation for Jewish Culture and modeled after the American academies in Rome and Berlin — will host four American artist fellows to help pioneer a cultural renaissance in the holy city. A fifth fellow, filmmaker Barbara Hammer, dropped out of the program yesterday for personal…
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Aronofsky Courts Christian Bale for New Noah’s Ark Epic
He’s saved Gotham City a couple times as Batman, and now Christian Bale might get to save the future of humanity as one of the heroes of the Torah. “The Dark Knight” star is apparently on Darren Aronofsky’s wish list to play Noah, in an “edgy” film being floated around Hollywood about the Biblical flood….
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Fast Forward How the Jewish commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ could help a woman challenge Kentucky’s abortion ban in court
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: יוטוב־פּערזענלעכקייט רעדט אויף ייִדיש וועגן אַ משפּחה־טראַגעדיעVIDEO: Youtube personality speaks in Yiddish about a tragedy in the family
מאַטי מענדלאָוויטשעס ברודער, וואָס האָט יאָרן לאַנג געליטן פֿון דעפּרעסיע, האָט הײַיאָר זיך גענומען דאָס לעבן. .
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