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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‘Operation Ivy League’ Shuts Down Columbia Fraternities
A massive undercover drug bust on Columbia University’s uptown Manhattan campus – dubbed “Operation Ivy League” by police investigators – shut down three fraternities last week, including a chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, the national Jewish fraternity. Investigators claim the bulk of drug traffic occurred in bedrooms and common areas of the three frat houses….
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Monday Music: Circles of Jewish Bluegrass
I’ve always had a deep appreciation for bluegrass. A form of Southern mountain music in overdrive, bluegrass coalesced in the late 1940s when Kentucky mandolinist and singer Bill Monroe, who had previously played old-time country and Appalachian music in a duo with his brother Charlie, formed a band called the Blue Grass Boys. The band…
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Music for Society’s Sake
Crossposted from Haaretz In October 1981 Italian composer Luigi Nono was commissioned to write a piece for the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music. Those were stormy days for Poland. It was the year Wojciech Jaruzelski rose to power, imposed martial law and became a dictator; to protest his actions, the Solidarity movement was…
The Latest
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Out and About: Adam Sandler Becomes a Valet; Alfred Kazin in His Journals
Is Adam Sandler’s next movie going to be about parking cars? Russian Jewish oligarch Roman Abramovich needs an entire island to house his art collection. Read an exerpt of Alfred Kazin’s journals, to be published this spring by Yale University Press. Michael Chabon has been elected director of The MacDowell Colony. How enigmatic Israeli music…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Rachel Rubinstein looks to the future of Yiddish literature in translation. Jay Michaelson questions the intuitive power of religion. Jenna Weissman Joselit wonders what Cyrus Adler would have thought of contemporary museum going. Gordon Haber gets depressed by Yael Hedaya’s “Eden.” Alexander Gelfand listens to the evolution of Jewish music at the Folksbiene. Philologos goes…
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Books Short Friday
Earlier this week, Avi Steinberg wrote about Kafka in Tel Aviv and shared a horribly embarrassing memo. His first book, “Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian,” was just released. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s…
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Friday Film: Moe Howard, an Honorable Stooge
Last August, during President Obama’s visit to Martha’s Vineyard, a protest erupted over a T-shirt being sold at the SunStations shop in Oak Bluffs that portrayed Obama as Moe, Vice President Joe Biden as Larry, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Curly. The caption read: “The REAL Stooges.” The storeowner said no malice was intended,…
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In Israel, Kindness Amid Devastation
Amid all the heartbreak and devastation as a result of the fire in Northern Israel, there have been some remarkable stories of human kindness. Today, many of the members of the moshav Nir Etzion will be starting the Sabbath in their own homes. But this time last week, they were under police instructions to evacuate….
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Friday Film: Weimar Cinema Beyond Caligari
“Weimar Cinema, 1919–1933: Daydreams and Nightmares,” running at MoMA until March 7, 2011, is billed as the largest-ever retrospective of German cinema from between the Wars to be shown in the United States. The era’s defining cinematic style, expressionism, is well-represented in dozens of offerings, giving a healthy dose of the atmospheric, disturbing and downright…
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Bezalel Can’t Go Home Again
Crossposted from Haaretz For a moment it seemed that the Bezalel Art Academy had decided to back down: shelving a plan to build a new campus in the center of Jerusalem, developed by an international team of architects which won a design competition five years ago. For a moment it seemed possible to believe that…
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Orthodox Couple Flip Their Wig on ‘People’s Court’
Talk about wigging out. A young Orthodox couple took their grievance to television’s “People’s Court” after a dry cleaner allegedly washed — and ruined — the woman’s $3,000 human-hair wig, the blog FailedMessiah reported. But if “Heidi and Mendi” were as shocked as they claimed when the sheitel came back looking mangy, they must have…
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