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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For the Hebrew Mamita, Poets Are Rock Stars Still
What if I knew more Hebrew than Spanish? What if I only hung out with white girls? What if Orthodox Jews reject me because I have a busted hymen and a head full of human rights? What if I’m not really Jewish? Those were some of the questions Vanessa Hidary, aka the Hebrew Mamita, asked…
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A German City Built by Jews
Cologne, Germany had a flourishing tradition, not just of Jewish creativity, but also of Jewish architecture. That tradition is demonstrated in “Cologne and its Jewish Architects,” an exhibition on view through September 5 at the Municipal Nazi Documentation Center of Cologne (NS-Dokumentationszentrum der Stadt Köln). Jewish architects such as Sigmund Münchhausen contributed mightily to beautify…
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Israel at Center of Melbourne Film Festival Boycott Row
Crossposted from Haaretz The Melbourne International Film Festival is a marquee event on the cultural calendar of Australia, in what some would call the world’s most livable and multicultural city. Once again, it was struck by controversy with independent film makers threatening legal action if their own movie was not revoked from the set-list. The…
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Kosher Meals Not Kosher Enough for Pedophile
When most inmates complain about jail food, they’re told — literally — to eat it up. Not Baruch Lebovits. The disgraced Satmar hasid, who was convicted of sexually molesting a teenage boy, is getting kosher food from a store in Queens delivered to his cell at Rikers Island, according to the New York Post –…
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The Belated Triumph of a Proto-Feminist Opera
“That was simply amazing!” a normally jaded music executive exclaimed to me after the second act of Franz Schreker’s provocative “Der Ferne Klang” (“The Distant Sound”). Hounded to death as a “degenerate” composer by the rising Nazis, Schreker’s defiantly louche, wildly successful 1909 opera disappeared and had to wait a century for its first American…
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The Night of the Murdered Poets
On August 12, over 100 people gathered at New York’s Center for Jewish History to mark the 58th anniversary of the Night of the Murdered Poets, commemorating the Stalin-ordered execution of 13 prominent Soviet Jews, including five Yiddish writers. Among those murdered were novelist David Bergelson and poet Peretz Markish, who was awarded the Stalin…
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Slate Columnist: Comparing Islamic Center to Auschwitz Convent Is Tantamount to Holocaust Denial
Taking on conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and other voices on the right, Slate blogger Tom Scocca makes a reasoned case against comparing the Islamic center planned for Ground Zero to the now-shuttered Catholic convent near the Auschwitz death camp. He writes: The Auschwitz convent is a recurring theme in the…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Jon Kalish goes to see “The Concert,” a French comedy about a Russian janitor who hijacks an invitation for the Bolshoi Orchestra to perform in Paris. Jerome A. Chanes reads (take a deep breath) “An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents With Supplements on Biblical Aramaic.” It’s important, trust us. Jordana…
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Argentine Jewry Takes Berlin
In honor of the Argentine bicentennial, and the country’s position as guest of honor at the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair, the Jewish Museum Berlin has turned over several of its rooms to “Jewish Life in Argentina,” a special exhibition that functions as a living archive of the community’s 150-year-old history, as well as a quiet…
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Washington’s Marijuana Rabbi
“What would it be like to smoke pot with my rabbi?” It’s a question that’s surely crossed the minds of many daydreaming Hebrew school students. But what if it’s the rabbi who’s selling the weed? The Washington City Paper reports this week that Jeffrey Kahn, a 58-year-old D.C.-area rabbi, hopes to become the proprietor of…
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A Time-Traveling Jewish Woman on Canadian TV
Erica Strange, like many of us, sees her therapist regularly — only hers helps her work through her problems by sending her to the past, the future and even to alternate existences. Our shrinks can’t pull off tricks like that, and we’re certainly not getting the same bang for our buck that Erica is. In…
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