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
-
Monday Music: Has Socalled Left the Jewish Scene?
Maybe it was only a matter of time before Socalled, the frizzy-haired, klezmer hip-hop hipster, tried to sidestep his ever-expanding identity as a “Jewish artist.” The arbiters of Jewish cultural identity go to great lengths to rope in the eclectic and the original, and a klezmer hip-hopper is a no-brainer. But no one wants to…
-
Mozart in Nature at the Abu Ghosh Vocal Music Festival
Crossposted from Haaretz Twice a year, at Shavuot and Sukkot, there’s a pilgrimage to a hill overlooking the village of Abu Ghosh west of Jerusalem. On the hilltop sits the Kiryat Yearim Church — “a Protestant church in the heart of a Muslim village where Jews sing Catholic music. It is the epitome of tolerance…
-
Books Welcome To Our Venus-Mars Home!
Lévana Kirschenbaum is the author of the forthcoming “The Whole Foods Kosher Kitchen: Glorious Meals Pure and Simple” (June 22). Her blog 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: I came…
The Latest
-
Out and About: Morton Feldman in Philadelphia; The ‘Once Upon a Potty’ App
Holland Cotter takes a look at the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s Gertrude Stein exhibit, reviewed by the Forward’s Joel Schechter here. Alona Frankel’s 1975 classic “Once Upon a Potty” is now an app. Philadelphia is holding an eight-day festival in honor of composer Morton Feldman, whose work has been covered by the Forward’s Raphael Mostel here…
-
This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Michael Kaminer talks to Tim Supple, the British-Jewish director of a new pan-Arab production of “One Thousand and One Nights.” Lawrence Grossman reviews a history of the Synagogue in America. Eli Valley’s first comic as the Forward’s artist-in-residence looks at the similarities between the Knesset and Kafka. Susan Tumarkin Goodman leafs through a sketchbook kept…
-
Books A Most Outlandish Awards Ceremony
The Moby Awards are everything that your typical awards ceremony is not: irreverent, un-manicured, efficient, spare, and the best part? Everyone is invited. Whimsically invented to honor the best and worst book trailers — video previews that publishers use to promote their acquisitions — it’s the kind of event that doesn’t necessarily compel its presenters…
-
A Word That Contains Its Opposite
This piece is crossposted from The Best American Poetry, where poet Eve Grubin is guest blogging this week. Read Grubin’s previous posts here, here and here, and her poetry on The Arty Semite here. The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s poem, “A narrow fellow in the grass,” describes her response each time she meets a snake:…
-
Friday Film: A German Director’s Alter Ego Bares All
Courtesy of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival Talk about baring all for your art. German-Jewish director Dani Levy does Woody Allen one better in “Life Is Too Long,” which made its North American premiere at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival in May. A dyspeptic “Stardust Memories,” “Life Is Too Long” both exposes Levy’s fragile psyche…
-
‘Dr. Death’ Jack Kevorkian Dies at 83
“Dr. Death” has finally lived up to his name. Jack Kevorkian, who has spent decades campaigning for the legalization of euthanasia, has died at 83. Kevorkian, who expired — unassisted — in a Detroit hospital, served eight years in prison and was arrested multiple times for helping more than 130 patients commit suicide between 1990…
-
In Song: Naso
Each week in ‘In Song’ The Arty Semite links the weekly Torah reading — however tenuously — to classic works of rock ‘n’ roll. This week’s parsha, Naso, continues from last week with the allocation of Tabernacle relocation duties to the Levites and a census of those eligible for said duties. We then have laws…
-
Physicist Steven Weinberg, Not Just Another Lady of Shalott
A high point of this year’s World Science Festival will be the June 4 lecture by American Jewish physicist Steven Weinberg, “The Future of Big Science” at the NYU Kimmel Center. Predicting the future is always parlous, but Weinberg, 1979 Nobel Prize co-laureate for, as the Nobel Committee put it, “contributions to the theory of…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 2
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 3
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion 80 years after Germany surrendered, we’re still learning the real lessons of World War II
-
News How a Holocaust denier turned antisemitism into a cryptocoin
-
Fast Forward Dozens of arrests reported as NYPD removes pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied Columbia library
-
Fast Forward Temple suspends second student involved in ‘F— the Jews’ sign
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
