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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Friday Film: When Perpetual Youth Is No Picnic
Underneath its colorful shell of swashbuckling pirate adventures, boyish hi-jinx, and clock-eating crocodiles, Peter Pan’s story is terribly sad. Sure, he gets to play and have fun forever, but by refusing to grow up he loses all of his friends and the girl he loves; he is forced to watch through the window as the…
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Former Syracuse Synagogue Opens as a ‘Green’ Hotel
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments In August 2009 I wrote (and posted photos) about plans to transform the former Temple Adath Jeshurun in Syracuse, into a new “boutique” hotel. This week the hotel opened. The building is still an impressive presence on Syracuse’s University Hill, though inside nothing of the old sanctuary…
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Friday Film: A Talking-Head Tribute to Lenny Bruce
Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce in ‘Lenny’ (1974). Courtesy Toronto Jewish Film Festival Nearly 50 years after his landmark Carnegie Hall performance, and 44 years since his drug-related death, Lenny Bruce still has the power to shock. And as long he’s onscreen, it’s impossible to look away from Elan Gale’s Looking for Lenny, a new…
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It Looks Better in French
Crosspsted from Haaretz June 1970 marked a new era for Ashkelon, with the dedication of the French Resort on its southern beach, at the far end of Ben-Gurion Boulevard. The resort took on mythical proportions, symbolizing the luxury, hedonism and glamour of foreign locales at a time when most Israelis still vacationed at retreats operated…
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Jerome Rothenberg: Khurbn and Poetry as Language of the Dead
To last week’s “The Thinking Person’s Guide to Holocaust” published here in the Forward, another significant contribution can be added: Jerome Rothenberg’s “Triptych,” which assembles three serial poems — “Poland/1931,” “Khurbn” and “The Burning Babe.” Today on The Arty Semite, we’re featuring an excerpt from the middle section. As Rothenberg poignantly points out in the…
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Hot Action Enoch: Japanese Video Games Take On Jewish Apocrypha
Courtesy of Ignition Entertainment There remains significant scholarly debate about the exact process and dating of the canonization of the Tanach, but for most Jews, the Book of Enoch ended up on the cutting room floor. Takeyasu Sawaki, a Japanese game designer and the director of the recently released video game “El Shaddai,” would like…
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From Red Square to Times Square: Forverts Photographer Arkady Yagudaev
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish. It is said that a good firefighter arrives at the scene half an hour before the fire breaks out. So what about a good photojournalist? When the amateur German aviator Mathias Rust infiltrated the Soviet Union in 1987 and landed right in the middle of Red Square,…
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Coming Soon: Israel’s Biometric ID Cards
Biometric identity cards — cards carrying a computer chip with biographical information like a photo, fingerprints, signature, and date of birth — were controversial from the moment they were first mentioned. Now Israel is finally ready to issue them, the local media reports. We have known this was coming since the run up to the…
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In the Navy Now
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Since coming to Washington, D.C., 18 months ago, I’ve had lots of rewarding experiences, but none quite as memorable as my recent excursion to the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command at the D.C. Navy Yard, where I delivered a speech in commemoration of the Holocaust to a varied and…
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Rabbi and Father of 11 on Trial for Molesting IDF Officer
Editor’s Note: Yesterday Bidany was found guilty of the charge of molesting a female Israeli Army officer. A female IDF officer is not taking an alleged case of misdemeanor sexual contact sitting down — especially not while sitting on an airplane. The NY Daily News reported that the 23-year-old officer, who commands a missile defense…
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Upside Down Day: In Tel Aviv, Students and Janitors Switch Places
Too often, janitors in public buildings the world over are taken for granted. Nobody captured this phenomenon as vividly as film director Ken Loach in his movie Bread and Roses, in which a janitor expresses that she feels invisible. Yesterday, students at Tel Aviv University made a sweeping gesture — quite literally — to show…
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