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
-
Chilean Miners Headed to Israel, Finally
After a delay of several months, the Chilean miners are officially on their way to Israel. The 33 miners — who captivated much of the world last year with their rescue after spending 69 days trapped underground — will make the trip between February 23 and March 2. The visit, announced today by Israel’s tourism…
-
Israel’s Newest Pop Sensation Bears Striking Resemblance to Justin Bieber
If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, teen pop star Justin Bieber should consider himself very, very flattered. Israel, whose tween girls last week demonstrated their website-crashing love for the Canadian singer, now have their own homegrown version to worship. Yair Danor, a 15-year-old from the Tel Aviv suburb of Ra’anana, is enjoying…
-
Woman Pleads for Good Babysitter on YouTube
For parents of young children, finding a good babysitter can be as important to quality of life as having food and shelter. But said quest is not always so easy. A young mom in Tel Aviv found that out while unsuccessfully seeking a nanny for her 7-month-old son. Undeterred, she has now taken to more…
The Latest
-
Scintillating CDs for a New Beginning, Between Sternness and Delight
Once Hosni Mubarak is liberated from his heavy chains of office, he’ll have time to kick back and appreciate some of the new classical CDs on offer. And, as many Egyptians have taken time to point out, he’s a big fan of Yiddishkeit. If he decides to take up American hospitality he might be especially…
-
How To Be Jewish, Israeli, Muslim and Palestinian, All at the Same Time
When I entered Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church in Greenwich Village on a recent Sunday afternoon to see the play “In Between,” which explores the cultural identity of a Palestinian-Muslim/Jewish-Israeli man, I suddenly felt hyper-aware of my own Jewish identity. It seemed telling to me, and surprising, that the only current New York performance of this…
-
House-Trained Labrador for Sale on MySpace
Crossposted from Haaretz The story of “Labrador Labratories” (sic) should be taught in workshops for developing creativity. A year and a half ago, after the unknown Makolet band broke up, soloist Tom Gottlieb found himself suffering from a creative block. “In Makolet there was a very critical atmosphere,” he says. “We would sit a lot…
-
A Good Kind of Drama in West Bank
There was drama in the West Bank involving soldiers and Palestinians this morning, my military sources tell me. But for once it was of a happy kind. Just before 2 a.m. an expectant mother started early stage labor. There were no Palestinian ambulances in the area, so a call went out to the Israeli military…
-
NFL Owner Enlists Wiesenthal Center After Being Ridiculed
For Washington’s alt-weekly City Paper, it was a clever, if childish, way to indicate a deep dislike of Redskins’ owner Daniel Snyder. For Snyder, it was “blatantly anti-Semitic,” his lawyers say. And now, the wealthy Washingtonian is suing City Paper for an unflattering article whose accompanying photo was “defaced by a schoolyard scribble of horns,…
-
A Postmodern Yiddish Satire Set in Nowhere, Arizona
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish. The modern period in Yiddish prose began with Yisroel Aksenfeld’s novel “Dos Shterntikhl” (“The Headband”), written some time in the 1820s, which opens with a detailed description of the shtetl “Loyhoyopolie.” The name, which can be translated as “Nosuchville,” is a neologism, made up of the Hebrew…
-
Israeli Sitcom ‘Traffic Light’ Stops TV Critics in Their Tracks
Male midlife crisis is apparently a cross-cultural phenomenon. The television comedy “Traffic Light,” an Israeli import, is enjoying critical acclaim on the eve of its February 8 debut on the Fox network. Sitcom humor just may be able to cross the Israel-U.S. divide. The show centers around three 30-something buddies, each of whom is at…
-
Monday Music: For Uruguayan Pop Star Jorge Drexler, Jewishness Is a Connecting Force
The Skirball Center, a sober cultural institution on Los Angeles’s ritzy Westside, was unusually alive on January 27. Music journalists, record executives and South American diplomats with an array of Spanish accents — from Argentina to Spain to East Los Angeles — bounced about the room. Along with the requisite contingent of L.A. yentas and…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Art How a Lower East Side Jew conquered the multiverse
-
Fast Forward Right-wing activists riot outside Israeli-Palestinian memorial event at Reform synagogue in Israel
-
Fast Forward Trump fires Doug Emhoff from Holocaust Memorial Council
-
Fast Forward Facing police investigation, Irish band Kneecap denies supporting Hamas, Hezbollah
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
