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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Saving Matt Fenster
This Sunday, at the Salute to Israel parade on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, participants and spectators will be able to do more than show their support for Israel; they could potentially save a life. A group of volunteers will be at the parade recruiting potential donors for a young father and other victims of leukemia…
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Chopin and Jewish Pianists: Then and Now
A revelatory May 7 Chopin recital by the noted pianist Edward Auer at New York’s Kosciuszko Foundation coincides with historic CD reissues from Sony Masterworks of Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Horowitz. Rivals in death as they were in life, Rubinstein (1887–1982) and Horowitz (1903 –1989) offer utterly different definitions of what it means to be…
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Happy Birthday Frank Kameny: A Gay Rights Pioneer Reaches 85
Things are not always easy for a nice Jewish boy from Queens who happens to be 50 years ahead of his time. On May 21, Franklin Kameny will be 85 years old. As “Leaders from the 1960s: A Biographical Sourcebook of American Activism” (Greenwood Press) explains, in 1957 Kameny, a World War II combat veteran…
The Latest
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A Crisis of Conscience: Gideon Shimoni on South African Jewry During Apartheid
The last thing you might expect at a scholarly lecture on the Jewish experience in apartheid South Africa is suspense. But there it was. Gideon Shimoni, a professor emeritus at The Hebrew University and the author of “Community and Conscience: The Jews in Apartheid South Africa,” spoke at New York’s Jewish Museum on May 13…
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A Jewish Taylor Swift?
Could the next guitar-toting, post-adolescent pop sensation — a la Taylor Swift or Colbie Caillat — be a 16-year-old Jewish girl from suburban Montreal? If the buzz around Brittany Kwasnik, a soft-spoken singer-song writer, is any sign, there’s a good chance. Kwasnik, who started writing songs in her bathroom, went from musician in hiding to…
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Adad Hannah: Questioning Photography, Video and Painting
Art lovers eager to rethink the inherent truth in the media of photography and video have until May 30 to catch “Adad Hannah: Masterpieces in Motion” at Connecticut’s Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Born in New York in 1971, Hannah was raised in Israel, London, and Vancouver. Based in Montreal for several years, Hannah has created…
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Not-so-lucky Avram Grant?
Saturday May 15 is the FA Cup final in England, a traditional highlight of the season. This year, “Uncle” Avram Grant, the former manager of the Israeli national team will be leading out the underdog Portsmouth team he’s been coaching for most of a dramatically turbulent year. When he took over about a third of…
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Polls Ask: How Much Do You Think Obama Loves Israel?
It’s the million dollar question here in Israel – what, exactly, does the public think of President Barack Obama? A Jerusalem Post poll in March indicated that just 9% of Jewish Israelis think that his administration is more pro-Israeli than pro-Palestinian. Now, figures from Tel Aviv University’s monthly opinion poll paint a very different picture….
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Naomi Campbell Finds Kabbalah
Supermodel Naomi Campbell, who two year ago compared Kabbalah to Alcoholics Anonymous, has done a 180 and gotten on the wagon. The star was sighted having secret meetings with with Eitan Yardeni, the Kabbalah leader who first got Madonna hooked, at the Kabbalah Centre in Manhattan, according to the New York Post. In 2008, reports…
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Summer Stylin’ in the YamulKap
Despite their common purpose – as a sign of respect toward God – yarmulkes come in a variety of shapes, sizes and designs, from the black velvet style worn by Haredim, to the mid-size satin skullcaps distributed at Reform bar mitzvahs. But with summer fast approaching, keep your eye out for the stylish YamulKap, dubbed…
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The Nakba in Israeli Art
This Saturday, May 15th, will be the first illegal Nakba Day in the state of Israel’s history. Due to a law passed by the Knesset last summer, any organization that receives public funds will be forbidden from taking part in demonstrations that commemorate the “Nakba,” an Arabic term for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian…
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