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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He Beat Me Black and Blue: Yiddish Songs of Family Violence, Part Four
This is the last part of a four-part article originally appearing in the Spring 2011 issue of Lilith Magazine. Read the first three parts here, here and here. ALLUSIONS TO RAPE Margaritkelekh / Daisies In the woods, by a stream The daisies grow like little suns With white rays. Khavele goes there, quiet and dreamy,…
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France’s Favorite TV Comic Host Examines his Jewish Roots
With the demise of Rodney Dangerfield and Henny Youngman, Jewish comic story-tellers have mostly vanished from American TV, but they are alive and well in France, in good part due to the raconteur, compère, and interviewer Philippe Bouvard, born in 1929 in Coulommiers, north-central France. Although Bouvard has broadcasted since the 1950s, his ongoing program…
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Truth and Beauty vs. the Dominating ‘I’
This piece is crossposted from The Best American Poetry, where poet Eve Grubin is guest blogging this week. Read Grubin’s previous posts here and here, and her poetry on The Arty Semite here. If “Imagination is evidence of the Divine” then, as John Keats wrote in a letter, “What the imagination seizes as beauty must…
The Latest
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A New Breath of Yiddish Poetry
“I’m not going to be on Oprah,” said Zackary Sholem Berger matter-of-factly about his new book, “Zog khotsh l’havdil / Not in the Same Breath.” He’s realistic about his completely negligible chances, not because Oprah’s show and book club have just come to an end, but because he knows his work of original Yiddish poetry…
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Are the ‘Smurfs’ Fascists?
Just as a whole new generation of kids is about to be introduced to those little blue creatures called Smurfs by a big Hollywood movie to be released this summer, a French writer and professor is warning parents that taking the tykes to the Cineplex might not be such a great idea. According to Antoine…
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He Beat Me Black and Blue: Yiddish Songs of Family Violence, Part Three
This is the third part of a four-part article originally appearing in the Spring 2011 issue of Lilith Magazine. Read the first part here and the second part here. Shvigern / Mothers-in-Law When couples married they did not necessarily become autonomous heads of their own households. Many a new bride — often a teenager in an arranged marriage — moved in…
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Coldplay Gives Thumbs-Up to ‘Freedom for Palestine’ Music Video
Coldplay is getting into some serious “Trouble” with its Jewish and pro-Israel fanbase. (See what we did there?) In a message posted on its Facebook page yesterday, the British band urged fans to check out the “Freedom for Palestine” music video. “Some of our friends are involved in OneWorld’s new ‘Freedom for Palestine’ single,” the…
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Books Rosh Camping
On Tuesday, Haley Tanner wrote about her mother’s blessing. 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: Years ago my family decided to take our celebration of [Rosh Hashanah](https://forward.com/schmooze/320610/rosh-hashana/ “Rosh…
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In Jerusalem, Proposed Bill Would Replace Arabic Place Names With Hebrew
No doubt you’ve heard about the ongoing protests in Sheikh Jarrah and the famous hummus of Abu Gosh. Soon, mentioning these place names on Israeli state television and radio could become illegal. The right-wing firebrand Tzipi Hotovely, the youngest lawmaker in Knesset, has initiated a bill that would rename these Jerusalem districts with Hebrew appellations….
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Grants Awarded To Reverse Israel’s ‘Brain Drain’
May was a good month for the Cedar family. On the heels of Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar’s winning the best screenplay award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival for his film “Footnote,” about Hebrew University Talmud scholar rivals who are father and son, it was announced on May 31st that his father, real-life Hebrew University…
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Out and About: A Triptych for Today; Music of the Holocaust, Online
A new website on music and the Holocaust has been launched in Berlin. Simon Dinnerstein discusses his monumental 1970s artwork, “The Fulbright Triptych.” Russian novelist Ludmila Ulitskaya’s “Daniel Stein, Interpreter,” a book that takes its inspiration from the real life Polish Jewish Partisan Oswald Rufeisen, is now available in English. Dutch Jewish novelist and Holocaust…
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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