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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Casting Away Sins in Bombay
Crossposted From Under the Fig Tree There’s something about the sea that captivates. Perhaps it’s the play of light on the water’s surface or the inexorability of its motions: back and forth, back and forth, it goes. Whatever the reasons, the sea beckons. Its hold on us is even more irresistible when joined to rituals…
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A German Sniper’s Silent Love
“Den Zverya,” a new film by Russian director Mikhail Konovalchuk, must be one of the few foreign films screened this year at a North American film festival without subtitles. That’s because the movie, which runs 84 minutes and is titled either “The Sniper” or “The Day of the Beast” in English, is completely without dialogue….
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‘Sensory Overload’ in America
For anyone who has embarked on a road trip across America, camera in hand, the images collected in “America By Car,” an exhibition of Lee Friedlander’s photography on now through November 28 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, will seem familiar. There’s the shrine to the teen killed by a drunk driver, the “ME…
The Latest
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Bibi Gets Down With the Facebook Generation
He’s a leader, not a “follower.” His Twitter account says so. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has launched a coordinated charm offensive on the Internet, creating his own accounts recently on the major social networking and media sharing websites. Since August, the 60-year-old Netanyahu has started his own pages on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, a…
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Jewish Groups, Mormons Reach Agreement on Posthumous Baptisms
If there’s ever been an inter-religious dispute that’s flown under the radar, the simmering, decades-long controversy between the Church of Latter Day Saints and Jewish groups over posthumous Mormon baptisms of Jewish Holocaust victims may well be a prime example. But an agreement struck last week by the Church and the American Gathering of Holocaust…
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Berlin as Cultural Hot Spot for Israeli Jews
On first utterance, “Israeli Jews are flocking to Berlin” is a phrase that might draw more than one cocked eyebrow. But as Public Radio International’s “The World” reported last week, a thriving Israeli Jewish community — mostly young, creative types — has found newfangled appreciation in what was once the capital city of the Nazi…
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Titanic Discoverer Launches Israel Sea-Floor Expedition
What is the man who discovered the wreck of the Titanic hoping to discover in the waters off the coast of Israel? As well as boasting the discovery of the Titanic wreck in 1985, Robert Ballard, a former US Navy commander and today a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, also found…
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French Teacher Suspended for Teaching "Too Much" Holocaust
We knew that denying the Holocaust could get a teacher in trouble. But believing in it? Haaretz reported that the French education ministry has suspended a Jewish teacher in Nancy for teaching “too much” about the Holocaust, “lacking distance, neutrality and secularism” in discussing it — and manipulating her students through “brainwashing.” But a lawyer…
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Singing for Your Bread and Butter
Over on the Yiddish Song of the Week blog, Forverts associate editor Itzik Gottesman discusses the ballad “Az es shtarbt nor up dus ershte vaybele” (“As Soon as the First Wife Dies”), as sung by Lifshe Schaechter Widman. Formally, “Az es shtarbt nor up dus ershte vaybele” (“As Soon as the First Wife Dies”) could…
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Mosque Debate Focuses Attention on Bloomberg’s Judaism
Leave it to a debate over a mosque to refocus attention on Michael Bloomberg’s Judaism. New York City’s mayor has returned to the national spotlight in recent weeks, as controversy has escalated over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” the proposed Islamic cultural center that would be built two blocks from the former site of the…
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Now You Can Get Hebrew Domain Names
Spelling out Hebrew domain names in English has created some confusion in Israel. As internetnews.com has pointed out, “the Hebrew word for an orange could be spelled out as ‘tapuz,’ ‘tapooz,’ ‘tapoos’ and more,” meaning it’s a challenge to “spell out the Hebrew names of sites in Latin characters.” Fret no more, Israeli web addicts…
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News Exclusive: ADL chief compares student protesters to ISIS and al-Qaida in address to Republican officials
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Opinion Pete Hegseth is targeting a Jewish American hero — who’s next?
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Opinion I teach Jewish history in Boulder. Is my community taking the wrong lessons from Sunday’s attack?
In Case You Missed It
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Film & TV In a film from Israel, three characters in search of a love language
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Fast Forward All San Diego Jewish organizations pull out of Pride festival over Kehlani performance, citing ‘serious safety concerns’
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Fast Forward Dave Portnoy on his tirades against ‘F— the Jews’ bar patron: ‘I don’t know if it did any good’
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Fast Forward Harvard Divinity School appoints professor who has criticized Zionism to new Jewish studies role
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