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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Books
Why There Are No Israeli Superheroes
Uri Fink, who 30 years ago created Israel’s first superhero, in the form of Sabraman, has a theory about why comic book superheroes have caught on only in America. “It’s naive just thinking people will go out and fight the bad guys out of the goodness of their hearts,” he told the Forward. “It’s Americans’…
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Fusing Indian and Jewish Worship With the ‘Kirtan Rabbi’
Kirtan, a Sanskrit call-and-response form of worship from India, and Rabbi, are two words not often found in the same sentence. Rabbi Andrew Hahn, better known as the “Kirtan Rabbi,” is on track to change that. Hahn’s spiritual innovation was on display at the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York’s Battery Park last week, as…
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Pill Makes Fasting Easier
Israeli Arabs may soon make your Yom Kippur fast easier. It’s often said that Jews and Muslims have a lot in common when it comes to religious observance, and that’s rarely highlighted better than when it comes to fasting. Both religions require full-on fasting several times a year. Now there’s a theory that a drug…
The Latest
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How to Get a Klezmer Record in Amazon’s Top Ten
The short answer? Get Nat Hentoff to review it in the Wall Street Journal. In Saturday’s paper, the eminent jazz critic published an appreciation of “Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-1953,” a three-disc box set of remastered archival Yiddish music that was released in late 2009. Hentoff had only good things to say about the remastered…
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Post ‘Borat,’ Kazakhstan To Set Record Straight
Though there was never an official reaction from the government of Kazakhstan, it’s a good bet that the 2006 film “Borat” did not earn applause from citizens of the Central Asian nation for its portrayal of them as Jew-hating, incest-practicing, homophobic and — worst of all — “Baywatch”-obsessed. But four years after the massively successful…
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Randy Cohen on Mel Gibson, ‘The Gift That Keeps on Giving’
Randy Cohen didn’t set out to lampoon Mel Gibson. But the concept behind his one man play “The Punishing Blow,” which opens August 13 starring Seth Duerr, might lead one to believe that he did. It’s the story of a bile-filled college professor, prone to incendiary Jew-baiting remarks who, arrested for drunk driving, is forced…
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Knicks’ Amar’e Stoudemire Has a Twitter Double
Amar’e Stoudemire was just asking to be parodied. The New York Knick’s out-of-left-field Tweets (e.g. “I’m going 2 Israel 2 study Hebrew. It’s time 2 get a better understanding on who we R”) left everyone (including us) speculating about his possible Jewish roots. Now some mysterious Twitter user has taken this to its logical conclusion….
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A ‘Wondering Jew’ at City College
Almost every institution of learning can boast legendary teachers, and “Reflections of a Wondering Jew,” recently reprinted by Transaction Publishers, shows that City College professor Morris Raphael Cohen, who died in 1947, is one such legend. Cohen’s 1950 posthumously compiled collection of articles displays the philosophy professor and legal theorist at his most informal and…
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Hasidic Hip-Hop in Harmony
The first few bars of DeScribe’s new video, “Harmony,” are an Auto-Tuned proclamation of love, respect and unity. Standing behind a microphone, surrounded by Jewish and African American teenagers, the bearded 28-year-old rapper advocates love and understanding between the two communities and the world at large. On August 2 DeScribe, also known as Shneur Hasofer,…
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The Last Words of Tony Judt
For some critics, Tony Judt will always be remembered, and reviled, for the 2003 essay he published in the New York Review of Books titled “Israel: The Alternative,” in which he called for a one-state solution. “The very idea of a ‘Jewish state’ — a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Laura Hodes goes to see “Dinner for Schmucks,” which maybe should have been called “Dinner for Schlemiels,” or “Dinner for Bat Mitzvah DJs.” Susan Shapiro offers an excerpt from her new novel, “Overexposed.” Philologos takes a nibble of Italy’s “pizza ebraica dolce.” Benjamin Ivry casts his gaze on Sweden’s Ernst Josephson, the “Jewish Edvard Munch.”…
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Opinion On Monday my son was sworn into the IDF. I spent that afternoon protesting the Israeli government.
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