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
-
National Poetry Month: ‘Jew on Bridge’ by C.K. Williams
This year, the Forward is celebrating National Poetry Month in style. The Arty Semite will be featuring new poetry every weekday, and it is our great pleasure to kick off the series with “Jew on Bridge” by C.K. Williams, an American poet who has been awarded nearly every major poetry prize, including a Pulitzer in…
-
Gwyneth Paltrow’s Got Rabbinic Roots
For Gwyneth Paltrow, Kabbalah isn’t just a passing fad. The actress (and sometimes singer), who will appear on this Friday night’s episode of NBC genealogy series “Who Do You Think You Are,” discovered that her great great great grandfather was Kabbalah master Tsvi Paltrowitch. Documents describe Paltrowitch, the Gaon of Nitzy in Russia, as “a…
-
First Jewish Collection for a ‘Small Press Legend’
Uprooted at age 9, abandoned into poverty, targeted by anti-Semitism, exposed to the horrors of World War II and finally confined to a wheelchair, Ed Galing’s life has been beset by ongoing difficulties. Yet he has never lacked dedication, perseverance, or imagination, in art or in life. In eloquently written work that defies his hardscrabble…
The Latest
-
Out and About: Stanley Kubrik’s Unmade Holocaust Movie; A 19th-Century Female Cantor Remembered
Richard Brody discovers Stanley Kubrik’s unmade Holocaust film, “The Aryan Papers.” Joel Schalit has a run-in with the garbage Nazis of Stuttgart. Philip Roth is among the nominees for the Man Booker International Prize. Forward contributor Mark Oppenheimer on the new teenage anti-hero. Rediscovering Julie Eichberg Rosewald, cantor at San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El from 1884…
-
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company Makes Israeli Debut
Crossposted from Haaretz The Aspen Santa Fe ballet company is currently on its first visit to Israel, at the invitation of the Herzliya Performing Arts Center. The American repertory company, which consists of 12 dancers, uses classical ballet techniques to support solid modern dance. A refreshing troupe, Aspen Sante Fe exhibits refined taste, expressed in…
-
Israelis Shoot for the Moon
A trio of Israelis is literally shooting for the moon, aiming to land a small spacecraft there by the end of next year. Should they do so, Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub would make Israel just the third nation to manage the feat, after the United States and Russia. The threesome are planning…
-
Books A.B. Yehoshua Speaks His Mind at the New York Public Library
A.B. Yehoshua’s new novel was inspired by a painting of a woman breast-feeding her father. The 74-year-old literary luminary, who has published some 15 books, does not retreat from the provocative or the perverse. Yehoshua calls “Spanish Charity” a probing of the creative process, and Haaretz saw it as a retrospective of the author’s own…
-
Books New Life for the American Jewish Year Book?
“It’s a shanda (outrage)!” exclaimed Bruce A. Phillips of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles Campus. He was reacting to the cessation of the American Jewish Year Book after a successful run of more than a century by the American Jewish Committee. The Yearbook — a handy compendium of demographic and historical trends,…
-
Baytown, Texas Celebrates Historic Synagogue Restoration
Crossposted from Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments On March 27, residents of Baytown, Texas celebrated the restoration of their 80-year-old synagogue, Congregation K’nesseth Israel. The building was designed by Houston architect Lenard Gabert in 1930, and after suffering limited damage in the destructive Hurricane Ike of 2008, has now been repaired and restored. The…
-
Does This House Look Like Hitler?
Someone call the Simon Wiesenthal Center: Hitler has been spotted in Wales! Well, not Hitler, exactly, but his likeness — in the form, if you can believe, of a two-story house. A 22-year-old in Swansea noted the resemblance between the suburban home and the German dictator during a routine traffic stop, then set off a…
-
Walter Benjamin, Book Collector Redivivus
Enthused readers of the German Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin are impatiently awaiting the announced May 9 publication date of a landmark translation of Benjamin’s “Early Writings” from Harvard University Press. Until then, readers afflicted with Benjamania can delight in a catalog published by the Kunstmuseum Solingen in Germany, “Stellar Immortality” (Die Unsterblichkeit der Sterne, to…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 3
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward A Jewish nonprofit may have accidentally caused Michigan to drop charges against pro-Palestinian activists
-
Culture For Christian nationalists, Trump’s pope picture isn’t a joke
-
Opinion Is Israel really going to reoccupy Gaza? Ask Trump
-
Yiddish World A photo of my bubbe when Jewish stores still had Yiddish signs
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
