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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Is It Immoral To Re-Steal Previously Looted Holocaust Memorabilia?
For a Jewish visitor to Poland, is it moral to steal souvenirs that may have themselves been looted from Jewish homes during the Holocaust? Not according to yesterday’s Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine. “Traveling in Poland, I visited antique stores offering Jewish items — menorahs, mezuzas — that seemed more than 65…
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String of Anti-Semitic Attacks Damage Montreal Institutions
With star turns in films like “Barney’s Version” and “Lies My Father Told Me,” Jewish Montreal has been making headlines for its cinematic profile. But a string of anti-Semitic incidents over the weekend is shining a less sanguine spotlight on the city’s Jewish community. The Montreal Gazette reported today that four synagogues and a Jewish…
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Monday Music: Sephardic Culture Takes On the Club Scene
When Erez Safar started the Sephardic Music Festival in 2005, he was thinking about the future of Sephardic music. Having spent the last decade watching klezmer explode in popularity among artists like the avant-garde composer John Zorn and the Brooklyn punk band Golem, Safar realized klezmer was moving into a brave new future and was…
The Latest
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No Joke: Clowns Boost IVF Pregnancy Rates, Study Says
Busybodies are constantly giving couples who have difficulty conceiving all sorts of advice — foods to eat, vitamins to take, acupuncturists to try. It ranges from well-meaning to downright offensive. Now, along comes a suggestion more bizarre than almost any other… with scientific backing. Dr. Shevach Friedler, an infertility doctor at the Assaf HaRofeh Medical…
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Books Jewish-American Literature as Multicultural Literature
Erika Dreifus‘s first book, “Quiet Americans,” will be published on January 19th. Her 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: Early next month, four other writers — Andrew Furman, Kevin…
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A Virtual Warsaw Ghetto
Crossposted from Haaretz One of the first stops made by visitors to the new Warsaw Ghetto Uprising exhibit in the Yad Mordechai Museum, in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, is the projection of a yellow star on their clothing. By moving your body, you put the virtual patch in the place where it belongs. It’s part of…
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Talking With Golden Globe Winner Paul Giamatti
Paul Giamatti has played a broad range of characters, from a station manager in Howard Stern’s “Private Parts” to John Adams in the award-winning HBO series of the same name. In his latest role (for which he earned a Golden Globe at last night’s award show), he plays the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed Barney Panofsky in “Barney’s…
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Out and About: Golden Globe Winners; Captain Beefheart’s Jewish Sideman
At the Golden Globe awards last night, winners included “Boardwalk Empire” for best TV drama (discussed in the Forward here and here); Al Pacino for his turn as Jack Kevorkian in HBO’s “You Don’t Know Jack” (discussed in the Forward here); Paul Giamatti as best actor in “Barney’s Version” (here and here); Natalie Portman in…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Jordana Horn goes to see “Mahler on the Couch” at the New York Jewish Film Festival (read more NYJFF coverage on The Arty Semite here). Benjamin Ivry investigates the literary chameleon, Romain Gary. Rachel Barenblat writes a tree poem for “Birch Magazine.” Raphael Mostel goes to see the story of Ruth at the New York…
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Will Film’s Nudity Keep Hasidim Away From ‘Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish’?
Tongues have been clicking in the Orthodox world about the U.S. debut of Eve Annenberg’s feature film “Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish” (which I previously wrote about for the Forward here), but the New York Jewish Film Festival screening on January 16 at Lincoln Center sold out quickly and the Hasidic dropouts-turned actors who star…
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Sacha Baron Cohen To Be Britain’s New Chief Rabbi?
As discussed in last week’s Forward, Britain’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has announced that he will retire in 2013, and speculation has begun about potential successors. Sure, it’s fascinating to those of us who keep abreast of developments in the world’s Jewish communities, but did you know it’s also of interest to…. bookmakers. Believe it…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Opinion This German word explains Trump’s authoritarian impulses — and Hitler’s rise to power
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend
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Culture Katz’s Deli is a mecca for food influencers — it kills me to see them butcher its good name
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Film & TV Whoever said ‘you can’t take it with you’ never reckoned with this Jewish patriarch
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Fast Forward Students at Netanyahu’s Pennsylvania high school want him ejected from the alumni hall of fame
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