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 Weisenthal Was a Mossad Agent, A New Book Says
A new biography of Simon Weisenthal reveals that the famed Nazi hunter may have had some heretofore-unknown friends in high places. According to author Tom Segev, who was granted unprecedented access, Wiesenthal was not just a crusading individual acting alone — he was on the payroll of Mossad. An article in The New York Times…
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Howard Jacobson Goes Short for the Booker Prize
For most New Yorkers, the idea of Jews beyond Israel, New York and New York South (aka Florida) is an annoying complication. For many American Jews, the existence of proud, older, historically significant communities in places other than America and Israel is a constant surprise. As a friend of my then girlfriend asked when first…
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Throwing Art in Glass Houses
Streetcar bells clang, workers hurry to their offices, and shoppers and tourists meander along the crowded sidewalk. Lital Dotan, a fair-skinned young woman with long, frizzy, strawberry blond hair, clad in a white terrycloth bathrobe, stares out at the busy downtown San Francisco scene from a couch in the front window of the Marina Abramovic…
The Latest
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Balkan Beat Box’s Party Politics
Imagine a klezmer band where the vocalists rap in English, chant in Arabic, and sing in Spanish and Serbian. That band is Balkan Beat Box, a group led by two Israelis — Ori Kaplan (saxophone) and Tamir Muskat (drums) — who merge traditional Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Eastern European sounds with hip-hop and electronica. With…
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Of Settlements, Boycotts and Political Theater
Watching an actor burst into tears during a monologue, Hamlet marvels at how the performer inhabits the scene so deeply — if only he could evoke such dramatic feelings in real life, Hamlet reasons, he might save his kingdom. Thus inspired, Shakespeare’s hero rewrites the script of a play that dramatizes what’s wrong with his…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
• Benjamin Ivry dusts off Benjamin Botkin, a pioneering folklorist vilified for his scholarly openness. • Shlomo Schwartzberg celebrates journalist Ruth Gruber, who became the youngest Ph.D. in history — in 1932. • Philologos investigates the word “synagogue,” and why nobody seems to use it very much. • Yossl Huttler contributes two poems about the…
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A Chatroom For the Five Books
For generations, scholars and cheder students have lugged around the Tanakh, the bedrock tome of Judaism, otherwise known as the Hebrew Bible. For some years now, they’ve also had access via their laptops to online versions. On September 8, the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim – the three subsections of the Tanakh – will join the…
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Atoning for Your Texts on Yom Kippur
At first glance, the ads echo the old “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye” ads — the ones featuring distinctly non-Semitic faces in ecstasy over Jewish rye bread. But in a $100,000 campaign that launches this week, the punims belong to scandal-bitten celebrities. And the look-alike ads tout the…
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Ritzy Philly Cemetery Makes Room for Jews
At least these locals won’t think, “There goes the neighborhood.” After 141 years, the ritzy, goyish West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia is inviting Jews to consider it as a final resting place. The September issue of Philadelphia magazine reports that those who plan to spend forever there — “as much of Philadelphia’s who’s who…
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Bereaved Parents Urge Peace Action
As Israel and the Palestinians come together in Washington, talk is cheap. Everyone has something to say for or against the meeting. One of the more unusual groups putting forward a more carefully considered opinion than most is the Parents Circle-Families Forum, an organization that consists of families who have lost a loved one in…
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Jews Dominate Vanity Fair 100 Most Influential Moguls List
“So Much for Controlling the Media” was the headline on Heeb’s recent obituary for its own print product. But the latest issue of Vanity Fair offers evidence to the contrary; with Jews dominating that magazine’s annual index of the 100 most influential moguls, our grip seems secure as ever. At the top: Preternaturally youthful Facebook…
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Opinion Gaza is starving. Where are the American Jewish leaders?
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Film & TV How Jon Stewart evolved on Israel — at least on ‘The Daily Show’
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Opinion A new humanitarian outrage is unfolding in the Middle East. It’s not in Gaza
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Marjorie Taylor Greene may be first Republican lawmaker to call Gaza war a ‘genocide’
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Fast Forward Lithuania scraps years of planning by Jewish groups to convert sports complex into Jewish heritage site
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Opinion I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel
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Yiddish קען מען זײַן פֿרום און פּאָליטיש לינק־געשטימט? איין אָרגאַניזאַציע זאָגט אַז יאָCan an observant Jew be politically left? This organization says yes
אויף דער קאָנפֿערענץ האָט מען געזוכט אין דער הלכה יענע פּרינציפּן װאָס זײַנען נישט נאַציאָנאַליסטיש, נאָר הומאַניסטיש און מאָראַליש.
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