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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My Other Baby
On Monday, Gal Beckerman, a staff writer for the Forward, wrote about barbecuing and hijackers. 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 the Jewish Book…
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A Thrilling Escape ‘From Somewhere in the Bavarian Alps’
“Escape,” an exciting World War II-era anti-isolationist thriller and romance, was released to great acclaim nearly 70 years ago, but for years has been difficult to get a hold of. Fortunately, the film, which anticipated “Casablanca,” snuck quietly onto DVD last April. In “Escape,” a naive American (Robert Taylor) travels to a country — never…
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A Poet’s Son Sorts Through the Papers Left Behind
Crossposted from Haaretz A collection of every single book and poem by Dahlia Ravikovitch, who passed away five years ago, will soon be released. The comprehensive project, edited by Giddon Ticotsky and Uzi Shavit and published by Kibbutz Hameuchad, also includes previously unpublished poems found in the artist’s estate. Ido Kalir, Ravikovitch’s son, made her…
The Latest
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Putting Together Yiddish Poetry, Piece by Piece
If Yiddish songs were popular in your childhood home, then the recently released new edition of “Pearls of Yiddish Poetry” may help put forgotten pieces of your auditory past back together. Many of us remember fragments of songs that we heard as children, songs that come back to us while doing the laundry, or scrubbing…
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Mighty in the House
Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards featured a Jewish house DJ. Joel Zimmerman is the given name of the Toronto-based artist who got his start in his basement and now performs as DeadMau5 (pronounced dead mouse, not dead mao 5). His stage name is no allusion to Art Spiegelman’s opus. The name came organically, when a…
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Do We Agree With Slate’s Assessment of the State of Jewish America?
On September 7, the online magazine Slate published an article titled “Will the Great American Rabbi Please Stand Up?” which argued that, in the words of its author, Shmuel Rosner, “great American rabbis seem to be a thing of the past.” Indeed, the article surmises that “Jewish America seems to have lost its chance to…
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Israeli Artist Takes Venice Film Festival Award
A movie combining a sexual fetish with elements of Jewish folklore and Israeli foreign policy has won a prize at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. “Tse” (“Out”), a 34-minute project by Israeli video artist Roee Rosen, took home the Orizzonti Award for medium-length films at the Venice Film Festival on September 11,…
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Rabbi Funnye’s Sukkot Plans
While President Barack Obama spent Labor Day weekend at Camp David, his wife Michelle’s cousin, Rabbi Capers Funnye, is heading out for a very different kind of camp experience over Sukkot. While Obama and his diplomatic team will work (thanklessly in some quarters) through a historically intractable conflict to spread a sukkah of peace over…
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Brazilian Sport Makes Its Way to Tel Aviv Beaches
For years, Tel Aviv’s beaches have sought to capture a little Copacabana swagger, providing a hedonistic alternative to the more pious activities of nearby Jerusalem. Seven years ago, footvolley, a soccer-volleyball hybrid developed in Rio de Janeiro, first appeared on Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach. Now, thanks to a former Israeli nightclub owner, the Brazilian sport…
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Education Ministry Overturns Decision To Cut Civics Budget
The education policy debate — most notably the decision to cut funding for the high school civics curriculum in favor of increased spending on Bible studies — in Israel last week is turning out to be rather uncivil. The decision — overturned after national uproar — reflects Israel’s ongoing internal discussion over the limitations of…
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Airport Strike In Israel Ends, But Damage Is Done
Come Yom Kippur, employees at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport might have to atone for scrambling thousands of passengers’ travel plans. On Monday, during one of Israel’s busiest travel periods of the year, the Israel Airports Authority employees union declared a strike; by late yesterday, the strike had been settled, Haaretz reported. But the damage had…
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