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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Simon Dubnow at 150
He was a proud Russian, a renegade Orthodox Jew, an ardent advocate of Jewish autonomy, and the man who pioneered the field of Jewish historiography at the turn of the 20th century. Yet Simon Dubnow continues to inspire Jewish scholarship today, as evidenced by a day-long conference at the YIVO institute for Jewish Research on…
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Jewish Funds for Justice Video: Embrace ‘Radical Empathy’
Jewish Funds for Justice’s new video “Al Tirah! Fear Not!” features “Sisterhood 50” selection Rabbi Sharon Brous and two irresistible monsters, “Fear” and “Empathy.” It’s the first video for the Al Tirah/Fear Not Movement, whose stated mission is to help people free themselves “from a nation of fear-based politics and embrace our radical empathy in…
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Jon Stewart, Dubbed The Most Influential Man, Interviews Obama Tonight
President Barack Obama and Jon Stewart. One of the pair is the most influential man in the world, and the other hopes to sway young Americans to show up at the polls and vote Democrat on November 2 with a TV appearance tonight. The most influential of the pair is not the President of the…
The Latest
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Eminem Will Play Dmitriy Salita in Upcoming Bruckheimer Film
It’s a fairly mind-blowing prospect, but, yes, it appears that Eminem is preparing to play Orthodox Ukrainian-born Jewish boxer, Dmitriy Salita, in an upcoming Disney film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The working title: “Knockout.” In an email, Salita — who I profiled recently for the Forward — provided a few more details about the project….
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Irma Stern Painting Sells for Staggering £2.4 Million
South African artist Irma Stern acquired a reputation for wanderlust during the mid-twentieth century, painting her way through innumerable African countries after her first exhibition in Berlin in 1919. (Stern, born in Transvaal to German-Jewish immigrants, refused to show in Germany between 1933 and 1945, instead traveling through Zanzibar, Senegal and the Congo.) Her paintings…
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French Jews, and Zionism as ‘Crystallization’
The Moroccan-born Israeli historian Michel Abitbol is a possibly surprising source for savvy perspectives on the strained relations between Jews and France. Up until now he has produced cogent, concise works about North Africa such as “The Jews of North Africa during the Second World War” from Wayne State University Press as well as others…
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Halloween Costumes — for Dogs
As Halloween approaches, New York magazine rounded up the saddest looking pet dogs dressed in the craziest, weirdest costumes. Here’s our favorite.
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Naming Names
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree Who among us doesn’t have a relative whose name was changed at Ellis Island? Rare, indeed, is the American Jew whose surname is the same as that of his or her European and Israeli cousins. Normative rather than exceptional, the immigrant’s acquisition of a new name seems to be…
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Ariel Sharon’s Premature Afterlife
“Ariel Sharon” lies propped up in a hospital bed, the frailty of the figure belying the larger-than-life dimensions that its namesake once personified. Sightless eyes stare ahead impassively; its chest rises and falls slowly as it ‘breathes’ unaided. Visitors are only permitted to view it in smalls groups of three, at most; the overall tone…
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Cartoon Art — Jewish Women Speak Out
A star-studded panel discussion officially launched “Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum on Thursday, October 21. But not everyone on the panel agreed that the exhibit’s theme even made sense. Trina Robbins, one of the leading lights in comics and a noted “herstorian” and author, questioned why the…
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Godard To Skip Honorary Oscar Ceremony
Did a Forward story influence Jean-Luc Godard’s decision to cancel a trip to accept an honorary Oscar? After the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it would bestow a lifetime achievement award on the idiosyncratic French-born, Swiss-based filmmaker, the Forward’s Benjamin Ivry laid out Godard’s history of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements in “Are…
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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.
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Opinion The Trump administration just gave a gigantic gift to extremists in the West Bank
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Opinion In this Hegelian age, we should be talking about Herzl not Trump
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Culture What a lion, a rabbi, and a dog taught me about grief
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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