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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Woman’s Odd Theory for Why Israel Blaze Happened
It’s been a week since the devastating fire in Northern Israel began, and already we have self-appointed experts telling us the “message” of the blaze. The latest theory is that it’s meant to focus people on… the campaign to free Jonathan Pollard. Pollard started serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison in 1987 for…
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Yarmulke Kerfuffle Leaves Fla. Panthers’ Fans Outraged
The latest egregious disappointment to hit the lowly Florida Panthers’ franchise has nothing to do with hockey. Panthers’ fans are (it baffles me to say) distraught and disappointed over a miscommunication surrounding a Tuesday night yarmulke giveaway, during what was billed as “the biggest Hanukkah party in South Florida.” The original press release stated all…
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‘Allen Ginsberg Forgives Ezra Pound on Behalf of the Jews’
Each Thursday, The Arty Semite features excerpts and reviews of the best contemporary Jewish poetry. This week, Rodger Kamenetz introduces his poem “Allen Ginsberg Forgives Ezra Pound on Behalf of the Jews.” This piece originally appeared on December 7, 2001, as part of the Forward’s Psalm 151 series. It is being published here online for…
The Latest
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Books Christmas in America
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Those who, for one reason or another, stand outside the frame of Yuletide cheer often find their voices muted come Christmas. The singing of “Silent Night” leaves us, well, silent. Not so for the protagonist of “The Loudest Voice,” one of the most celebrated of Grace Paley’s many singular…
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Marie Antoinette’s Tel Aviv Palace
Crossposted from Haaretz When he bought the house in Neve Tzedek four years ago, Boaz Monos knew Marie Antoinette’s palace would be the inspiration for its interior design. “I was very attracted to her image and she very quickly became a personal passion for me,” he says. “I read everything about her and visited every…
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Cobbling Together Spirituality and Anarchism
A longer version of this post appeared in Yiddish here. The son of a Jewish shoe store owner, Gustav Landauer became famous and was killed as a Jewish-German anarchist, having abandoned religion in his youth. Born in 1870, in Karlsruhe, Germany, Landauer’s interests were political and literary, not religious. By the early 20th century, however,…
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All in the Family: Perelman Edition
Does Raymond Perelman, the nonagenarian businessman and big-time Jewish philanthropist have a “heart and head bursting with anger, arrogance, and rage”? So says his son, Jeffrey, in court documents revealed this week. Alas, there is more high-stakes Perelman family drama for those interested in gawking at that sort of thing (not us, of course). Tabloid…
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The Yeshiva University Professor Who Secured U.S. Residency for John Lennon
All you need is love, but sometimes a good immigration lawyer is also helpful. That’s what the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is reminding people today, the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Like countless Jews before him, the former Beatle faced resistance to his efforts to gain U.S. residency — though in his case the…
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Roundworms, Ridicule and the Nobel Prize
If you doubt that the life of a molecular biologist and geneticist can make for delightful reading, then you have not yet seen “Sydney Brenner: a Biography” by Dr. Errol C. Friedberg from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Friedberg, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, explains how Brenner, honored with the…
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Japanese Store Halts Sales of Nazi Costumes
With offices in Toronto, Buenos Aires and Paris, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center keeps a vigilant eye on global anti-Semitism. And thanks to a wide and ardent network of supporters, its reach extends to the unlikeliest of places, like Japanese discount retail store Don Quijote Co. In a letter sent Monday to company executives,…
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Books My Horribly Embarrassing Memo
On Monday, Avi Steinberg wrote about Kafka in Tel Aviv. 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 Author Blog series. For more information on…
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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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