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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Architecture by the People, for the People
Crossposted from Haaretz The city of Holon invested $17 million of its own funds in the Design Museum. But for the Jesse Cohen project — a biennial program of community-based art and architecture in its most run-down neighborhood — it budgeted only NIS 800,000. That covers only half the cost of the project, which the…
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Experts Say Coca-Cola Should Not Respond to Pro-Zionist Rumors
Bizarre rumors surrounding Coca-Cola’s religious and political affiliations have circulated for years. Some of the most popular suggest that the company is Jewish-run and bankrolls Israel. Others propose that, read backwards in Arabic, its logo says “No Muhammad, No Mecca.” Although these accusations remain entirely unsubstantiated and unlikely, the company chooses to step up and…
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From Chagall to Orpheus, Frenchifying European Jews
Hunting around France’s National Archives for naturalization papers of famous people might seem an odd way to compile a fascinating book, but Doan Bui and Isabelle Monin, two journalists from the weekly Nouvel Observateur, managed to do just that with “They Became French” (Ils sont devenus français), out from Les éditions J.-C. Lattès in November….
The Latest
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Did the Nazis Discover 3D Technology?
So much for James Cameron pioneering the 3D phenomenon. It turns out Hitler was about 70 years ahead of the curve. While conducting research for an upcoming film project in Berlin’s Federal Archives, Australian director Phillipe Mora discovered two 1936 black and white propaganda films shot in 3D. Born out of pre-war Nazi Germany, they…
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Books The Stranger’s Notebook
On Monday, Michael David Lukas shared a list of his top 10 favorite Jews of all time. His 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: In my last post I…
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Books How to Sacrifice a Lamb and Other Important Information
For many Jews and non-Jews, American Jewish culture is defined by stereotypes such as the pushy mother, the shleppy father, chopped liver swans, too much food (“just in case…”) accountants, doctors, and holidays in the Catskills or Florida. But a new generation of Jews are so hip, Americanized and assimilated that they are not even…
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The Party Is Over for Allenby 58
Crossposted from Haaretz The life cycle of the building at 58 Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, with its glory days and its bleaker days, is a microcosm of trends and fashions that have affected the city from the 1930s to today. As a movie theater built in 1937, it integrated well into the inhabitants’ leisure…
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The Return of Mark Epshtein, a Forgotten Master of the Yiddish Avant-Garde
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish. The name Mark Epshtein (1899-1949) no longer occupies a prominent place in Yiddish cultural history, but a current exhibit in Kiev brought the artist back to the city where he created his most important work. “The Return of the Master,” which runs until February 20 at the…
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Yad Vashem Gets Interactive With Google
Accessing Yad Vashem’s massive store of photos and documents is about to get as easy as typing into a search bar. According to a report in The New York Times this week, the Jerusalem-based “keeper of the world’s largest Holocaust archive” is expanding a partnership with Google to digitize about 130,000 photographs — and give…
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Compelled by Drama: Q & A With ‘Compulsion’ Playwright Rinne Groff
“The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank has inspired numerous dramatic works since its publication in English 1952. There was a Broadway play in 1955 by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett which won the Pulitzer Prize; an adaptation of the play for film in 1959; a 1980 television movie also written by Goodrich…
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Bird Made of Wire
Crossposted from Haaretz A cloud of having missed the mark hovers over “Forehead Mesh,” Aaron Adani’s exhibition at the Kibbutz Gallery in Tel Aviv. There are quite a number of beautiful of works in it and interesting treatment of wire mesh (chicken wire, a material often used in art courses ) but it seems as…
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