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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TIME names Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year
In a surprise decision, Time magazine today disregarded the people’s choice of WikiLeaks’s Julian Assange for Person of the Year and opted for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The accolade, awarded to the individual who has “for better or for worse…done the most to influence the events of the year,” according to the magazine, would have…
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A Restless Photographer in Chicago
From the celebrated to the marginalized, from the heat of a summer antiwar protest to the searing cold of a Windy City winter, Chicago-based photographer Art Shay has been capturing unique, often strikingly ironic images for more than six decades. Thirty two of them, including pictures of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Saul Bellow, James…
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Lady of the Forest
Crossposted from Haaretz The singer Karen Malka appears to be on friendly terms with mother nature. Her new album “Eshet Hayearot” (“Lady of the Forest”) is, as its name implies, replete with references to rivers, flowers, earth, grass — and always with a feeling of cosmic harmony. But the weather conspired against Malka on Sunday,…
The Latest
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A Starring Role for Efratia Gitai, Amos Gitai’s Mother
Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, who turned 60 this year, has been investigating his roots. Last year a Tel Aviv Museum exhibit honored his father, Bauhaus-trained architect Munio Weinraub. Gitai’s 2009 film Carmel featured French actress Jeanne Moreau (star of a recent Gitai staging of a play inspired by Josephus’s “Jewish War”) reading authentic letters written…
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Heartwarming Classical Concerts for Cold Winter Days
The Babylonian Talmud counsels that at times of bitterest cold, it is best to say, “Such is the way of the world,” and then “observe eight days of festivity.” One such ideal post-winter solstice festivity for Manhattanites is a January 11 Carnegie Hall recital by America’s sweetheart of song, soprano Renée Fleming, in a program…
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The Case For (and Against) Watching Christmas Movies
Should Jewish parents let their kids watch Christmas television specials? Maybe, writes Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick in a column yesterday. On the one hand, “one needn’t be virulently anti-Christmas to experience the seasonal anxiety felt by parents who want their children to enjoy the winter holidays while avoiding religious indoctrination,” she contends. And characters…
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Are U.S. Students Determining Israeli Corporate Policy?
The Israeli food giant Strauss has found itself caught between a rock and a hard place. Internationally, some customers have been furious at the company’s declaration that it supports the Israeli military. According to press reports, until a few weeks ago in the “corporate responsibility” section of its website it declared: Our connection with soldiers…
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When Disability Is No Barrier to Dance
Heidi Latsky, head of Heidi Latsky Dance and creator of The Gimp Project is about to end her one-year artist-in-residency at the JCC in Manhattan. After months of rehearsals, workshops with everyone from preschoolers to seniors, and tidbit performances in the lobby and other spaces in the JCC building, Latsky‘s final offering is “IF: A…
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The Return of Israel’s Most Controversial Filmmaker
Crossposted from Haaretz After a long cinematic silence, Assi Dayan is back, directing a black comedy about a psychiatrist who rents out his apartment to patients who want to commit suicide. On the set, one of the most important Israeli filmmakers, the hero of whose new film is a very intelligent individual, describes a story…
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Sotheby’s to Auction Historic Gibraltar Judaica
Sotheby’s New York sale of important Judaica, an annual event featuring ceremonial metalwork, manuscripts and printed books, takes place this year on December 15. Leading the auction are a pair of Italian-made silver Torah finials belonging to Sha’ar HaShamayim, the Great Synagogue of Gibraltar. Other items such as 15th-century Torah scroll from Poland are also…
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ADL’s Take on Holocaust-Themed Video Game
The Anti-Defamation League once again looked to make an imprint on gaming culture by declaring a new Holocaust-themed, first-person shooter video game inappropriate. The game, called Sonderkommando Revolt, is set during the October 1944 Auschwitz uprising, which resulted in the death of over 400 Sonderkommando, Jewish concentration camp workers involved in the perpetration of Nazi…
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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 School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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אינעם 18טן יאָרהונדערט איז די קהילה אין נאַזנאַ געווען די צווייט גרעסטע אין גאַנץ טראַנסילוואַניע.
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News Is the crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism the new Red Scare?
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Opinion Trump’s cuts are a war on Jewish literature, thought and history itself
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