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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The Astounding Samuel Bak
In a recent piece for Newsweek titled “Life Isn’t Beautiful,” Cynthia Ozick took aim at “fraudulent” Holocaust art, which, in her estimation, includes films such as Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful,” Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” and especially Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds,” which Ozick called “a defamation, a canard.” But not all Holocaust art is a…
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Patrick Modiano: Writing and Rewriting Recent Jewish History
On June 9, French novelist Patrick Modiano will receive a prestigious literary prize from the Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca, previously given to Jean Anouilh, Jorge Luis Borges, and Milan Kundera. Modiano, born in 1945, is the son of Albert Modiano, an Italian Jew with roots in Salonica, who survived the war as a…
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Nikolaus Pevsner: The ‘Herr Professor-Doktor’ of British Architecture
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, a German-born Jew, became one of the pillars of British academia as a highly respected architectural historian. After relocating to London in 1933, he was eventually knighted in recognition of his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, “The Buildings of England” (1951–74). So the announcement in a new biography by Stephen Games,…
The Latest
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Madoff Play With Wiesel Scene Back On, Without Wiesel
Much flak was given last week to Theater J in Washington, D.C., when the company, at the behest of Elie Wiesel, canceled a play about the Bernard Madoff scandal. Wiesel was apparently upset about being depicted in a fictional jailhouse scene. But now, the play is back on — this time at a different locale…
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Israeli Apartheid Group Banned From Toronto Gay Pride Parade
The decision today to ban a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from Toronto’s Gay Pride parade is drawing fire from some gay activists for “censorship” – but has earned praise for “censoring a hateful message” from the Canadian B’nai Brith. At a raucous press conference earlier — interrupted by cries of “Shame!” and “Resign!”…
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Michael Oren and a Reverend Dance the Horah to Idan Raichel
Dinner before a pro-Israel event, $31. Subway uptown to mingle with Jews, $2.25. Watching Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and a reverend dance the horah in a cathedral to the sounds of The Idan Raichel Project…priceless. Approximately 1,500 New Yorkers, Israelis and representatives from countries as obscure as Moldova showed up last night at New York’s…
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Sarcasm Software Is Dead Serious
If there’s one thing that Israelis don’t get, it’s sarcasm. Try being sarcastic, whether in English or in Hebrew, and more often than not it falls flat, sometimes leading to embarrassing misunderstandings. Ironic, then, that Israeli academics have just made a breakthrough that will help the world know when somebody is being sarcastic. Hebrew University…
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Could Elvis Costello Be Coming to Israel After All?
His wife, the Canadian jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall, is to perform in Ra’anana in August, and the international pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs has offered Elvis Costello a “five star VIP tour of Israel” if he accompanies her on the trip. The Forward recently reported that Costello canceled his June 30 and July 1…
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Naïm Kattan: an Iraqi Jewish Writer in Canada
An acclaimed master of the French Canadian literary scene, novelist and essayist Naïm Kattan also offers readers a unique Iraqi Jewish viewpoint. In English, Kattan is mostly known as the author of “Farewell, Babylon: Coming of Age in Jewish Baghdad,” a justly praised memoir from David R. Godine. Unfortunately, few of his dozens of other…
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Books South Carolina’s Franklin J. Moses: Scalawag, But No Paskudnyak?
A scalawag may be a nogoodnik or even a paskudnyak, but in the subtitle of Benjamin Ginsberg’s brisk, informed “Moses of South Carolina: A Jewish Scalawag during Radical Reconstruction” from Johns Hopkins University Press, “scalawag” has a more precise historical meaning. Applied after the Civil War to Southern whites who joined political forces with freed…
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Barbra Streisand To Open BookExpo America 2010
Fans of the comedian Kathy Griffin will recall her deathless account of Barbra Streisand’s visit to “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” and the television host’s astonishment on discovering that Streisand had painted her microphone white as part of a recent obsession with color. Another expression of this color sensitivity is Streisand’s forthcoming “My Passion for Design”…
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