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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Israeli Films Get an International Platform Online
On July 1, the Israel Film Center — housed at The JCC in Manhattan — launched the Israeli Film Database for public access. Conceived two years ago, the database has served primarily as a tool for Israeli film professionals to document and market their work. Now, anyone can view profiles for over 3000 Israeli films…
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40% of Israelis Break the Law While Driving
Israel’s roads are scary places. Okay, the old joke is an exaggeration – drivers in this hot country don’t stick to the left-side or right-side, but drive in the shade – but even the US State Department comments on Israel’s aggressive driving tactics on their Israel page: “Aggressive driving is a serious problem…Drivers are also…
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Mostly Marvelous Music in Boro Park
I was pleased to see a profile in the New York Times on July 20 of the unusual cantorial-music-aficionado-turned-audiophile-sound-engineer Mendel Werdyger. Werdyger is the proprietor of Mostly Music, one of the last bastions of old school Jewish culture in New York City. While you can certainly buy the standard schlock recordings of Hasidic boys choirs…
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Yiddish Song of the Week: ‘Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?’
Over at the Yiddish Song of the Week blog, Forverts managing editor Itzik Gottesman introduces the children’s folksong “Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder” with a look back at the 1980’s Yiddish cultural scene in the Bronx: I recorded “Vos hostu gelernt mayn kind in kheyder?” (“What Did You Learn My Child in Cheder?”)…
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French Jews Fight To Change Their Names
In the mid-1930’s, my great uncle, just out of high school and struggling to find a job, came home one day to announce he was changing his last name from Gerstenfeld to Grey. The entire family went along with his decision, and today that family is the Grey family. My family is not alone. Jews…
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Hedy Lamarr, Queen of Hollywood Chutzpah
During her lifetime, even personal friends were unaware that film star Hedy Lamarr was Jewish. Now two new biographies — “Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr” by Stephen Michael Shearer, due out in September from St Martin’s Press and “Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film” by Ruth Barton, just out from The University…
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György Faludy’s ‘Happy Days in Hell’
Penguin Modern Classics has recently reissued “My Happy Days in Hell,” an autobiographical novel by Hungarian Jewish writer György Faludy, to mark the centenary of the author’s birth on September 22. First published in 1962, “My Happy Days in Hell” is an essential document of the 20th century by a writer whose stature is comparable…
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El Judio Maravilloso on Stage With Grupo Fantasma
In the salsa world, they call him El Judio Maravilloso, the Amazing Jew. And when the legendary pianist Larry Harlow — born Lawrence Ira Kahn — joined the funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma on stage last night at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, he delivered on his nickname. It was a moment of generational fusion. Harlow,…
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Jessica Posner Wins Top Prize at VH1’s Do Something Awards
On Friday, 23-year-old Jessica Posner was in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. Three days later she was in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Palladium, sitting amongst gliterrati like Snoop Dogg, chatting with host Jane Lynch and – ultimately – accepting a $100,000 Do Something Award on VH1 for her work in starting a school for girls and a…
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Munich Photographers in Palestine
From February 10 through May 23, “Unexposed: Munich Photographers in Exile,” a compelling exhibit at Munich’s Jewish Museum, focused on the art and fate of three photographers who fled Germany for Palestine in the 1930s, thereby remaining mostly unknown in their native land. Alfons Himmelreich (1904-1993), Efrem Ilani (1910-1999), and Jakob Rosner (1902-1950) all became…
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More Cuban Than Klezmer
Unlike many practitioners of Jewish music, percussionist and composer Roberto Rodriguez doesn’t view Jewishness as a simple war chest of traditions and musical idioms to draw from. Instead, Rodriguez’s Cuban-Jewish All Stars project is a more strict interpretation of what a particular moment in Jewish history must have sounded like. The era is pre-revolutionary Cuba,…
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