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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Off in Yonder Klezmer Mountains
It may be stretching a humorous point to call the band behind original Klezmatics member Margot Leverett “boys,” whether or not they are from the Klezmer Mountains. Nevertheless, the Klezmer Mountain Boys of the band were at least a decade younger than most of the audience members who’d snapped up the tickets so early that…
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Move to Alabama, Get $50,000
There are some perks of being Jewish: knowing you’re part of the “Chosen People,” being part of a warm and vibrant community, and as Adam Sandler says, “Instead of one day of presents, we have eight crazy nights.” But now there’s the chance to get $50,000 just for being Jewish. There’s just one tiny catch:…
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Sylvain Lévi: A Man Not For All Seasons?
Some heroes of Jewish history are better known for their deeds than for their personalities, like Sylvain Lévi, president of the Alliance israélite universelle until his death in 1935. A great expert on Eastern religion, literature and history, who co-authored a dictionary of Buddhism and taught Sanskrit at the Sorbonne, Lévi has been little remembered…
The Latest
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Russian Spy Ring’s Jewish Connection
The Russian spy ring case that dominated headlines this week now has at least one Jewish connection. The Daily News reports that 28-year-old Anna Chapman, one of the supposed spooks busted this week by the FBI, was dating a divorced New Jersey businessman “with deep pockets and influential friends” — and a Jewish backstory. Michel…
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This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
Eli Valley sends Stuart the Jewish Turtle to Johannesburg to stop Judge Goldstone from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah. Paul Berger yuks it up with Russian Jewish comedians in New York. Jerome E. Copulsky reviews “The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness” by Oren Harman. Judah S. Harris…
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Vodka Ad Too Sexy For Brooklyn Hasidic Community
Is a bikini-clad bum offensive? Does a clothed booty constitute an “inappropriate” image? Probably not in hip-hop videos, vacation ads or swimwear promotions. But on the side of a New York City Transit bus that travels through heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, it’s a different story, a crusading rabbi says. And the Metropolitan Transportation Authority seems…
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Robert Badinter, Defender of Life and Liberty
Few CD companies might be expected to issue a four disc set of 30-year-old political speeches, but this is just what the enterprising small label Frémeaux & Associés has done with Robert Badinter’s 1981 French National Assembly oratory. Badinter, who appeared in the 2007 documentary “Being Jewish in France,” was Justice Minister in 1981, when…
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Yiddish Song of the Week: ‘Afn beys-oylem’
Over at the An-sky Jewish Folkore Research Project, Forverts managing editor Itzik Gottesman, along with a few other contributors, has been poking through the nooks and crannies of Yiddish music and poetry on the Yiddish Song of the Week blog. As quickly becomes clear from reading the blog, these aren’t your regular Yiddish standards. Rather,…
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An Israeli Town’s Campaign To Rename Sodom Street
The residents of Ashkelon in Southern Israel like to think of themselves as good, upstanding folk. Which is why one local street sign has become a cause of great annoyance and embarrassment. For as long as most Ashkelon residents can remember, they have had a Sodom Street. Sodom, if you recall, was one of the…
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Are Jewish Film Festivals in Trouble?
As reported earlier this year, Berlin’s Jewish Film Festival, Germany’s only such gathering, may be shutting its doors due to funding cuts from the local government. Is Jewish culture now so well-loved and understood in Berlin that such a festival is no longer needed? On the contrary, the London-born Berlin festival director Nicola Galliner told…
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For Malian Musicians, ‘Simplicity is Freedom’
Eclecticism is a virtue too often touted by musicians and critics. Reviews and press releases formulaically repeat the cliché that “artist x blends elements of genre y with style z.” While this may be relevant to the archivists amongst us, such statements really say very little about the quality or authenticity of the music in…
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