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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What Price Perfection?
Based on first impressions alone, it would be tempting to dismiss Or Even Tov and Miri Segal’s video exhibit “Future Perfect,” on view until December 11 at Tel Aviv’s Dvir Gallery, as clever if somewhat overstated satire. Taking its cues from the realm of technological-scientific progress, one immediately discerns tropes from science fiction, specifically the…
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Still Captivating After All These Years
Crossposted from Haaretz Rivka Michaeli gives an impressive performance in the title role of “Nechama,” a film directed by Edit Sheratzki in which she plays an elderly woman who wakes up one morning knowing that it is her last day on earth. She has to deal with the people around her, who are either too…
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Nancy Spero: Majestic Art, from War Atrocities to Operetta
The married painters Nancy Spero and Leon Golub fascinated their contemporaries by interweaving political themes into expressive artworks. As an individual creator, Spero finally received her full due in Christopher Lyon’s “Nancy Spero: The Work,” a lavish book out in October from Prestel Publishing. Lyon’s introduction explains the symbolic importance to Spero of texts such…
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Books 30 Days, 30 Texts: ‘Shema is for Real’
In celebration of Jewish Book Month, The Arty Semite is partnering with the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA) and the Jewish Book Council to present “30 Days, 30 Texts,” a series of reflections by community leaders on the books that influenced their Jewish journeys. Today, Ira J. Wise writes about “Shema is For…
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Dance Dance Revolution, Jew Point 0
A Jewish version of “Dance Dance Revolution” is coming to a shul near you. Just in time for Hanukkah, “Step It Up” is a new game designed for Orthodox Jews who’d prefer to get down to techno versions of Hebrew and Yiddish tunes than to Lady Gaga’s racy lyrics. The game’s inventor, Faigy Grossman, 25,…
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Nick Kroll, ‘The League,’ and the (New) New Jew
When Philip Roth’s Alexander Portnoy discusses the arcane symbolism of his girlfriend eating a banana, or talks about time spent alone in the bathroom with women’s underwear hanging on the door, or any number of other things that can’t even be implied in the html of a family website, he is revealing his innermost “perversions”…
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What Would Herzl Think?
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Three cheers for Tel Aviv! Recently, the Lonely Planet travel guide singled out the Mediterranean entrepot as one of its top 10 cities for 2011. “Tel Aviv is the total flipside of Jerusalem, a modern Sin City on the sea,” it noted, adding that “hedonism is the one religion…
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Books 30 Days, 30 Texts: ‘Engendering Judaism’
In celebration of Jewish Book Month, The Arty Semite is partnering with the Jewish Education Service of North America (JESNA) and the Jewish Book Council to present “30 Days, 30 Texts,” a series of reflections by community leaders on the books that influenced their Jewish journeys. Today, Idit Klein writes about “Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive…
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Monday Music: War and Exile in Washington
“Black woods howl in the stove/Our dog turned into a lion/but today the grownups are/Frowning like a mean witch.” So go the lyrics to Karel Berman’s song “Children at Play” from his 1944 work “Poupata” (Buds), sung by Canadian bass Robert Pomakov. Berman’s lyrics convey a naïve perspective but were composed for a bass on…
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Thanksgiving Reaches the Israel Defense Forces
It turns out that the Thanksgiving tradition reached the Israel Defense Forces. An organization that cares for so-called lone soldiers — i.e. soldiers who made aliyah without their parents — prepared Thanksgiving dinner for 200 people in Tel Aviv. And it wasn’t only U.S. expats who were invited, but also soldiers from 13 other countries….
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Monday Music: Josh Waletzky’s Yiddish Song
On the Yiddish Song of the Week blog, Pete Rushefsky writes about Josh Waletzky and “Yaninke,” a song Josh learned from his father, Sholom Waletzky: One of the leading contemporary composers of Yiddish song, Josh Waletzky (b. 1948) grew up in a family that was deeply embedded in the secular Yiddish world of Camp Boiberik…
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