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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Three Poems By Alicia Ostriker
Each Thursday, The Arty Semite features excerpts and reviews of the best contemporary Jewish poetry. This week, Jake Marmer introduces three poems by Alicia Ostriker. Alicia Ostriker, winner of the 2009 Jewish Book Award in poetry, has many voices. From one work to the next her tone may leap from angry and confrontational to lyrical…
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IDF Catches Army Dodgers on Facebook
Playing “Farmville” on Shabbat isn’t a great idea if you’ve told the Israeli army you’re too frum to serve. That’s one of the lessons about a thousand Israeli women have learned after the Israel Defense Forces used Facebook to check out claims of religious observance. By using the hugely popular social-networking site, the military managed…
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The Wife Left Behind
On the Yiddish Song of the Week Blog, Forverts associate editor Itzik Gottesman writes about “Tunkl brent a fayer” (“A Fire Burns Dimly”), a song about an agune, a woman who was abandoned by her husband but cannot remarry: [Jacob (Yankev) Gorelik] sang “Tunkl brent a fayer” (“A Fire Burns Dimly”) in his apartment in…
The Latest
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Lohan and TMZ Photographer — He Blew The Hebrew
Crossposted From TMZ Lindsay Lohan got a hard lesson in bad Hebrew today — when our gentile photog tried to spit out a question in native Jew tongue … and totally futzed it up. As LiLo made her way to an L.A. gym, our guy tried to ask a Passover-inspired question about why she believes…
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Will Cosmo Mag Get Un-Sexy for New Middle East Edition?
Whether they’re Arab or Jewish, women in the Middle East will soon have one more thing in common: access to Cosmopolitan magazine. Hearst Magazines announced Wednesday that it is launching an Arab-world version of Cosmo, which will join 60 other editions selling in 100 countries. Despite headlines like one on MediaBistro.com that announced, “Cosmopolitan to…
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Out and About: True Grit’s Oscar Chances; Bullet-Stopping Books
Jewcy talks to novelist Myla Goldberg. At Tablet, Leil Leibovitz eulogizes Israeli comic actor Yosef Shiloach. The New York Times Carpetbagger blog talks to the Coen “Boys” about “True Grit” and the Oscars. Adam Kirsch reviews a new biography of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. Is Hebrew being threatened by too much translation? Visit Khan Sharonim,…
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Israel’s Funniest Home Videos
Crossposted from Haaretz Tal Rosenthal sits lazily in front of a TV, indifferent to the scolding of the actress playing his mother and completely ignoring the woman portraying his grandmother. But the contents of the skit — for a new show produced by Rosenthal and his writing partner Noam Sharon — are actually far less…
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Gays Were Behind the Nazi Party and Other Strange Allegations
Gay people were behind the rise of the Nazi party during World War II. And now, they’re trying to suppress a book about their role. If you believe the right-wing web site World Net Daily, this isn’t wingnut fiction, but historical fact. And independent-media site AlterNet is reporting that World Net Daily is not only…
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Author Imre Kertész Enriches Western Culture
Parkinson’s disease has not deterred the octogenarian Hungarian Jewish Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész from literary productivity. Adding to justly-praised books such as “Fatelessness,” “Kaddish for an Unborn Child,” and “Detective Story,” still available from Vintage Books, in October Kertész’s French publisher Les éditions Actes Sud released a new translation of “A Galley Slave’s Diary”…
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Designer Murder Suspect Fears Religious Violence in Jail After Watching ‘Oz’
Sounds like Nick Brooks has been watching too much TV. While police grilled him about the murder of his swimsuit-designer girlfriend, Sylvie Cachay, found strangled in a bathtub at the Meatpacking District’s tony, members-only Soho House, the 24-year-old blabbered that “I watch the show ‘Oz.’ I’ve seen what happens in jail,” according to the NY…
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Books Being the ‘Kvetch’ Guy
On Monday, Michael Wex wrote about the birth of his idea for his new novel “The Frumkiss Family Business.” 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: It’s nothing to…
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Most Popular
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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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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
In Case You Missed It
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Film & TV Netflix’s newest Israeli show has nothing to do with Israel
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Fast Forward Jill Sobule, pop star who also composed songs for a new ‘Yentl,’ dies at 66
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Yiddish צווישן טרער און מוט — צווישן געדענקען און אומאָפּהענגיקייטBetween tears and courage — between memory and resilience
הירהורים צום 77סטן געבוירן־טאָג פֿון מדינת־ישׂראל
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Opinion Ireland’s prime minister gave condolences for Hitler’s death — here’s why that’s a contemporary problem
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