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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Out and About: Israeli Winners at Sundance; Ian McEwan Defends Jerusalem Prize Acceptance
Two Israeli films, “Restoration” by Yossi Madmony and “Zero Motivation” by Talya Lavie, picked up prizes at Sundance. The Egyptian Museum was hit by looters, but it could have been worse. Israeli filmmakers have received death threats over their film on the Gaza war. Ian McEwan has defended his decision to accept the Jerusalem Prize,…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Benjamin Ivry examines the work of misunderstood painter Philip Guston. Philologos investigates Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel.” Jenna Weissman Joselit looks at the love affair between Jews and statistics. The Forward interviews Joan Rosenbaum, departing director of the Jewish Museum. Eve Grubin reads the spiritual poetry of Yehoshua November. Scott D. Seligman…
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Justin Bieber Fans Crash Israeli Ticketing Website
Bieber fever has hit Israel. Tickets to the country’s first-ever Justin Bieber concert went on sale Thursday evening – but remained available for only a few minutes before leaan.co.il, the ticketing website for the Tel Aviv show, crashed due to overwhelming traffic. Bieber, the Canadian pop singer with a tween fan base more rabid than…
The Latest
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Friday Film: Q&A With Sundance Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain
Filmmaker, Internet pioneer and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain believes that “when you speak your truth, you speak the universal.” This seems to be the case, given the buzz surrounding her new, partially autobiographical film, which premiered January 21 at the Sundance Film Festival. Best known among American Jews for ““The Tribe,” a 2006 short…
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Friday Film: Lost Weimar Classic Resurfaces at MoMA
As part of its epic retrospective of Weimar Cinema, “Daydreams and Nightmares,” New York’s Museum of Modern Art will screen Werner Hochbaum’s 1932 film “Razzia in St. Pauli” on January 29 and February 2, an early German sound film long thought lost. An atmospheric slice-of-life look at the Hamburg underworld of pimps, prostitutes and criminals…
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Jesse James Heads to Israel, Sans Nazi Garb
Jesse James is one mixed-up guy. Just days after photos emerged of him smiling as a passenger in his car gives a [Nazi salute] (https://forward.com/the-assimilator/135003/), news broke that Sandra Bullock’s philandering ex-husband recently visited Israel. James — who was previously snapped wearing a nazi cap and giving a “Sieg Heil” salute — visited the Jewish…
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Holy Land as Theme Park
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Word from on high is that the Walt Disney Company is planning to open a theme park in Israel. Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle! For years, religiously-minded Americans had created facsimiles of the Holy Land on American soil. As early as 1881, a “miniature representation in relief and…
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A Visionary From Heel to Toe
Crossposted from Haaretz For Yotam Raz-Friedman, 21, shoe design is intuitive. He began to acquire his skills at age 12 in Haifa. He would take apart his family’s shoes and put them back together again, and he diligently studied shoemakers at work. At 16, he had already customized sneakers for clients. Two years later, he…
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Morris Rosenfeld’s Sweatshop Songs
Each Thursday, the Arty Semite features reviews and excerpts of the best contemporary Jewish poetry. This week, however, the poet and poem are contemporary in spirit, if not in fact. Morris Rosenfeld, born in 1862 in Russian Poland, became famous in the early 20th century as one of the Yiddish “sweatshop poets” of New York….
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Slideshow: Remembering Jewish Life in Poland
A decade ago, American journalist and photographer Edward Serotta decided to collect the life stories and family photographs of every elderly Jew living in Central Europe that he could find. “I wanted to document a whole world,” he said. It was a world that few Jews or Europeans knew about. Jews were unaware that a…
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Out and About: J.D. Salinger’s Favorite Burger; Talmud in Italian
J.D. Salinger was a fan of Burger King, according to letters by the deceased author released today. Forward contributor Sarah Wildman writes in Slate about the “Hitler and the Germans” exhibit at the German Historical Museum in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Google has partnered with Yad Vashem to provide access to the museum’s…
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
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Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion The secret cost of Israel’s wars ravaged my family. It’s only getting worse
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Yiddish מחשבֿות פֿון אַן אַהיים־געקומענעם (אַ מלחמה־טאָגגבוך)Reflections of a soldier after returning home (a wartime diary)
דער מחבר איז אַ סטודענט אינעם ירושלימער העברעיִשן אוניווערסיטעט, אינעם צווייטן יאָר ייִדיש־לימוד
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
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