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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Yinglish and Spanglish at the International Accordion Festival
Mark Rubin is a musician based out of Austin, Texas, who has played at the International Accordion Festival since 2001. His latest project is the Atomic Duo. The International Accordion Festival is not well known outside of Texas, and that’s a shame. For a decade, the people of San Antonio have been treated, at no…
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Out and About: Andy Warhol in Tel Aviv; Israeli Bands in Berlin
The Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv is showing Andy Warhol’s Jewish portraits. Folk legend Pete Seeger supports a financial, but not an artistic boycott of Israel. “Hitler and the Germans,” an exhibit at Berlin’s German Historical Museum, is a huge hit. Also a huge hit in Germany: Israeli bands. Leonard Bernstein’s late…
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Naomi Campbell Takes Up Kabbalah
Better get out your book plates, Madonna. Model Naomi Campbell wants to borrow your copy of the Zohar. According to this JTA report, the hot-tempered supermodel has taken up study of the mystical Jewish tradition in order to calm her emotions. Of course, she is but the latest of a (red) string of non-Jewish celebrities…
The Latest
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Leah Koenig looks into the proliferation of kosher certification in America. Curt Schleier and Gordon Haber ponder “God in America,” a six-hour PBS documentary that debunks the myth that the Founding Fathers were evangelicals. Steven G. Kellman goes poking around in Nicole Krauss’s “Great House.” Philologos wonders if swearing loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic…
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What Not to Wear: Senior Tory Suspended by Conservative Party for Dressing as Hitler
Harrogate Council leader Coun Mike Gardner has made a fashion faux pas and there are photos to prove it. The Yorkshire Evening Post ran the incriminating photograph of Gardner dressed up as Hitler, giving the Nazi salute. The photo, which Gardner claims was released by political rivals, has forced him to be removed from his…
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‘American’s Next Top Model’ Messes With the Wrong Jewish Mother
Marina Petrack, mother of America’s Next Top Model contestant Esther Petrack, wants everyone to know that her daughter will not give up Shabbat for the runway. The Jewish Chronicle reports that Marina, an Orthodox Jew, is blaming bad editing for the appalling suggestion that her daughter would forsake observing Shabbat to further her modeling career….
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Rudolf Hess Painting To Be Auctioned Off
This is turning out to be a banner season for emerging German artists. First, as the Forward reported, a British auction house put recently discovered paintings by Adolf Hitler up for sale. Now comes word that a canvas by Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy leader in the Nazi party, will go under the hammer at a…
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Attention Single Jewish Men…
Are you a single, thirty-something Jewish American man, in constant dread of your mother’s nagging quest to understand why you’re not married? Do you live in the shadow of her disappointment, feeling inferior and inadequate, and maybe starting to believe yourself that you’ll die alone? Well, here’s a solution: Move to Tel Aviv, where 44…
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Israeli Grandmaster Takes Chess World Record Back From Iran
Crossposted from Haaretz Israeli chess grandmaster Alik Gershon broke the Guinness World Record in Tel Aviv early Friday morning for simultaneous games played, a title previously held by an Iranian chess player. The thirty-year-old played 527 concurrent games, winning 87% of them. Jewish Agency Chair Natan Sharanskey and several Knesset members turned up in Tel…
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Slideshow: Jews of the Fillmore
With the opening of San Francisco’s Jewish Community High School of the Bay’s (JCHS) new building on Ellis Street in 2002, the city’s organized Jewish community finally returned to the Fillmore. Only local Jewish history buffs appreciated the significance; the neighborhood in which the school is situated — now called The Western Addition — was…
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Three Faiths Cozy Up at the Library
Bibliophiles, history buffs, religionists, and the plain curious will find “Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” the new exhibit at the main branch of the New York Public Library, an extraordinary glimpse into the history of the Abrahamic faiths and their commonalities. Partly sponsored by the Coexist Foundation, a New York non-profit dedicated “to promote…
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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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