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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‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Is Coming to New York!
After seven seasons in sunny Los Angeles, celebrity schlemiel Larry David is bringing his award-winning HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” home to New York. HBO confirmed a New York Post story stating that a “majority” of the show’s 10 episodes will be shot in the city where David grew up, and where his career-making sitcom,…
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Flooding Auschwitz
Just a few days after the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial complex was closed in an effort to save its Holocaust archives from heavy flash flooding in southern Poland, the site has been partially reopened, according to the Associated Press. Heavy rainfall has wreaked havoc across central Europe in recent days, causing rivers to burst, flooding many provincial…
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Funnyman, the First Jewish Superhero
In 1947, nearly a decade after Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster sold the rights to Superman — an infamously raw deal that earned the comic’s creators a paltry $130 — the duo attempted to avenge their exclusion from the franchise’s lucrative rise to the top of the comic book heap. But their new effort, Funnyman,…
The Latest
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Court Rules Catholic Woman Has To Raise Stepson as Orthodox Jew
Divorce is never easy, and mixing in the rules of Orthodox Judaism certainly doesn’t make it easier. But that’s precisely what happened when Laura Derbigney became entangled in a custody battle between her Catholic husband and his Jewish ex-wife over the ex-couple’s 7-year-old son. Derbigney, a Chicago resident, is being forced by a court to…
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The Joys of Pan-Mizrahi Music
Whatever naysayers may claim, Middle Eastern people (and others) delight in Middle Eastern-sounding music. This is one thesis behind a sympathetic new study from Wayne State University Press, “Mediterranean Israeli Music and the Politics of the Aesthetic” by Amy Horowitz. From the 1950s to the 1990s, Horowitz explains, North African and Middle Eastern immigrants to…
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Old Jewish Divas and Some Casting Advice for Dustin Hoffman
Yesterday’s announcement that 43 years after playing a quintessentially confused Jewish college graduate, Dustin Hoffman plans to make his directorial debut, may raise some eyebrows. Hoffman has chosen to adapt “Quartet,” a 1999 play by Cape Town-born Jewish playwright Ronald Harwood (né Horwitz). In the bittersweet “Quartet,” ancient opera singers in a retirement home lip…
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PunkTorah’s Jewish Prayer Campaign
PunkTorah, creators of the Indie Yeshiva Pocket Siddur, have taken a do-it-yourself approach to daily prayer. The non-profit organization has just launched the website 3xdaily, which aims to explain the traditional three daily prayers (Shacharit, Mincha, Ma’ariv) along with other information related to Jewish prayer. On the site, PunkTorah explains that they created 3xdaily in…
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Uncarnal Love: Fictionalizing French Socialist Léon Blum
Ilan Greilsammer, who teaches political science and French culture at Bar-Ilan University, is the author of a 1996 biography from Les Éditions Flammarion of the French Jewish Socialist leader Léon Blum, as well as a 1998 “New History of Israel” (Gallimard). After editing Blum’s “Letters from Buchenwald” (2003; also from Gallimard), Greilsammer has just published…
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For Israeli Literature, Why Not Head to Illinois?
On Thursday Dalkey Archive, the university press of the University of Illinois, disembargoed their long-touted release about their contemporary Hebrew literature series. Having already announced this year the imminent or forthcoming publication of three notable Israeli books in English — including Eshkol Nevo’s “Homesickness” (see video below) — Dalkey confirms that this will be an…
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I’d like to thank…The Genesis Prize?
The Grammy’s, the Nobel, the Oscar’s, the McArthur…The Genesis Prize? Soon a new award may be added to the list of the world’s most prestigious (and profitable) accolades. Natan Sharansky, the current Jewish Agency chairman, has supposedly proposed something called “The Genesis Prize,” a $1 Million award for Jewish contributions to humanity in areas including…
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In Cannes, Creepy Old Directors Stick Together
Talk about the pot calling the kettle all sparkly and shining. Woody Allen went on record this past weekend at the Cannes Film Festival defending fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski. Polanski, who has been under house arrest in Switzerland since September and who faces possible extradition to the U.S., pleaded guilty in 1977 to statutory rape…
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