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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Leaving Mother Russia
In his last posts, Forward staff writer Gal Beckerman wrote about barbecuing with hijackers and his other baby. His first book, “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry,” will be available September 23. His blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of…
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Museum of Tolerance Honors Clint Eastwood
In the movies, Clint Eastwood’s cowboys, inspectors and emotionally wounded tough guys made him a cultural icon of American manhood. In real life, the Oscar winner will soon be honored for another role: bringing justice and tolerance to the big screen. As “Dirty” Harry Callahan said, “Go ahead, make my day.” On November 14, Eastwood…
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Black-Market Lulavs On the Rise at Sukkot
In the Mishnah on the subject of lulav and etrog, the species blessed on the upcoming festival of Sukkot, there’s a statement that one may not fulfill the mitzva of the lulav with a stolen lulav (palm branch). Well that’s largely been academic, as there isn’t much of a black market for lulavs and etrogs…….
The Latest
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British Holocaust Denier To Lead Tour of Nazi Sites
Controversial British Holocaust denier and “historian” David Irving (to call him a historian, sans quotations, seems a tad irresponsible) will lead a group of British and American tourists on an “unforgettable journey” next week to Nazi sites in Germany and Poland. Needless to say, Irving’s trip hasn’t gone over well. “For Holocaust survivors, the planned…
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Slideshow: Illustrators at the Crossroads
The conceit behind “Blow Up,” the latest group show at The Society of Illustrators, is somewhat overblown, if you will. The show, billed as “an open window onto the visual melting pot of contemporary image making,” presents work by Tomer Hanuka, Yuko Shimizu and Sam Weber, three artists with different backgrounds who meet “at the…
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Drawing Eros, Darkly
In the 1960s, Hannah Wilke caught the attention of the New York art scene and shocked the public with her frank and sexual sculptures, which forced viewers to confront the body as a site of pleasure and eroticism, death and decay. Wilke is now best known for her “vulva sculptures,” (a body of work readers…
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Charlie Chaplin’s Jewish Barber
For 70 years, fans of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” now widely available on DVD, have marveled at the prescience of the comedian’s anti-Nazi satire. Filmed before America actually entered World War II, when some Hollywood movie moguls still soft-pedaled critiques of Hitler, “The Great Dictator” continues to fascinate today. Recently published by Les éditions…
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Songs in the Key of Supernatural
With the release of Galeet Dardashti’s album “The Naming,” we can officially say we are in the year of the female Jewish voice. Following the exhilarating Mycale project (who opened for Dardashti this week at the intimate Le Poisson Rouge in New York) and Charming Hostess’s new album, Dardashti contributes seven tracks of impressive vocal…
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Reading When Wet: Highlights of the Brooklyn Book Festival
From the looks of the Brooklyn Book Festival, you’d guess we were a far better read country than we are. But then, this borough is skewed: The one letter that prevents its name from being Booklyn is either adventitious or bashert. Brooklyn’s bookish populace loves dropping that “r,” and even as rain spat on their…
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Israel Buys Twitter Handle From Porn Entrepreneur
Twitter users following @israel were, until last month, not getting news from the Jewish State. Nor were they getting updates from the West Bank or Gaza Strip. They were, however, reading about a totally different kind of strip…as in striptease. The owner of the handle since Twitter’s infancy, Israel Melendez told the New York Times…
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Jewish Ball Player Most Likely To Cure Cancer, and More
Craig Breslow, an Oakland Athletics relief pitcher, has been called the smartest man in baseball more than once. And after graduating from Yale with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and nearly matriculating at NYU’s medical school, the title isn’t necessarily unwarranted. But Breslow, a “proud” Jew and New Haven native, is getting some…
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Opinion Gaza is starving. Where are the American Jewish leaders?
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Film & TV ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’ sends The Thing to shul — and gives Jack Kirby credit
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