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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30 Days, 30 Texts: A People In Between
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, Jane Ramsey writes about “A People In Between:…
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Caught in a Sad Romance
Filmmaker Josh Freed is willing to do a lot for the sake of his art, including casting himself in a negative light. His debut documentary, “Five Weddings and a Felony,” which premieres November 6 at the DOC NYC film festival, is Freed’s personal journey as a Jewish 28-year-old New York guy, trying to figure out…
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Cut the Challah, but Slice It Slant: A Response to the ZEEK Poetry Manifesto
The editors at ZEEK recently came out with a poetry manifesto. Since the journal devotes significant space to poetry, and there are precious few publications which consider Jewish poetry in a serious way, I looked forward to their treatment of the subject. I glanced at the last paragraph and saw that the authors wanted to…
The Latest
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Celebrating Coherent Worlds in Sound: Musicologist Michał Bristiger
For a musicologist born in 1921, Michał Bristiger is going great guns. With two new books out and an evening of vocal and keyboard music in his honor on October 23 at the Warsaw Opera, Bristiger enjoys unusual cultural resonance. Born to a Polish Jewish family in the small shtetl of Jagielnica in Ukraine, Bristiger…
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Books Getting Close to Your Food Is Harder When Meat Is Involved
On Monday, Sue Fishkoff wrote about people who only keep kosher on holidays. She is the author of “Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority.” Her blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author…
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30 Days, 30 Texts: ‘The Blessing of a Skinned Knee’
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, Marcella Kanfer Rollnick writes about “The Blessing of…
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In College News…
One student at Technion gets full marks for ingenuity. Staying true to the Haifa institution’s tagline, “Israel Institute of Technology,” he put technology to good use when preparing for an examination. Using his lecturer’s computer, he asked the dean to send him the questions. But the dean smelled a rat, and now the 26-year-old student…
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Books The Meaning of Money
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Many moons ago, when I was a graduate student in Jewish history happily spending my days doing little else but reading, one of the most intriguing books I encountered was not Maimonides’ “Guide to the Perplexed,” or “Transactions of the Paris Sanhedrin” or, for that matter, Hannah Arendt’s “The…
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Hitler and Mussolini Wine, and not Just for Halloween
It may have seemed excessive for Vicki Noble to compare the burning of a medieval witch to the lynching of an African American or to “a Jewish person going to the oven.” But, for those who read about the Belgian-style ale named Witch’s Wit in the New York Times, at least the situation seemed to…
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‘Good Morning America’s’ Juju Chang Is Jewish
Juju Chang, the well-liked newsreader on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” was born in South Korea but is now “twice as Jewish” as her Jewish-born husband, former NBC News President Neal Shapiro. Shapiro made the joking comment in Sunday’s New York Times, in a “Sunday Routine” profile summarizing the pair’s Sunday activities with their three sons….
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Tolerance Education For Students at "Beat the Jew" High School
A Southern California high school, where seven seniors where caught playing a chase game called “Beat the Jew” in May, will follow a new tolerance curriculum sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area and the Anti-Defamation League’s “A World of Difference” Institute. The curriculum — set to start today — will…
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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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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
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Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion The secret cost of Israel’s wars ravaged my family. It’s only getting worse
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Yiddish מחשבֿות פֿון אַן אַהיים־געקומענעם (אַ מלחמה־טאָגגבוך)Reflections of a soldier after returning home (a wartime diary)
דער מחבר איז אַ סטודענט אינעם ירושלימער העברעיִשן אוניווערסיטעט, אינעם צווייטן יאָר ייִדיש־לימוד
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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 At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
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