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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Mother-In-Law Jokes Are Kosher, Judge Rules
A U.S. District Judge in New Jersey recently ruled that comedian Sunda Croonquist can continue making fun of her Jewish mother-in-law. Croonquist, the AP reports, a half-Swedish, half African-American woman who married a Jewish man, was sued two years ago by her in-laws who were offended by her jokes. And just in case things weren’t…
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Clueless Clarice: Inspecting Lispector’s ‘Jewish Mysticism’
Last year “Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector” (Oxford University Press) appeared to qualified praise. Readers and critics alike took issue with the biographer’s otiose portrait of Lispector as a Jewish mystic, even one of the tzaddikim, “bearers of that irrational something.” Lispector, originally named Chaya, was born to Pinkhas and Mania Krimgold…
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Beverly Hills Mayor Hearts Theodore Herzl
If you will it, it is no dream. And if you believe in it (and you are the mayor of Beverly Hills), you can name a street after it. Which is just what Beverly Hills Jewish Mayor Jimmy Delshad did for the grand-father of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl, according to a recent story on Ynet….
The Latest
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Danny the Red!: German Jewish Politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit Still in the Spotlight
An indelible memory of France’s 1968 social upheaval is the diminutive red-haired German Jew, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, nicknamed “Danny the Red,” popping up gleefully at student protests and shouting to the crowds. A sympathetic new biography by tabloid journalist Emeline Cazi, “The Real Cohn-Bendit” (“Le vrai Cohn-Bendit”) from Editions Plon, explains that Cohn-Bendit was born to…
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Ke$ha’s Bat Mitzvah Blunder
Imagine this… it’s your big day, you are finally a (Jewish) woman: It’s your bat mitzvah. And Daddy’s even paid $50,000 to bring a huge star to your party as a surprise. Only when the star performs her two songs (yeah that’s $25,000 a pop) she wishes you Happy Sweet 16. WHAT? Apparently that’s what…
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The Forward Talks Russian Lit With Meir Shalev
Meir Shalev, one of Israel’s most renowned novelists, interviewed Ludmilla Ulitskaya from Russia at the International Writers’ Festival at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem on Tuesday May 4. Author of “Blue Mountain” (1991, “Russian Novel” in the Hebrew, translated by Hillel Halkin), more recently the acclaimed “A Pigeon and A Boy” (2007, translated by Evan Fallenberg)…
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‘Art in Time’: A Parallel Universe of Comic Book History
Visually orgasmic, painfully gorgeous, blissfully pulpy, a must-have for epicureans of American culture: Is it possible to heap too many superlatives on Dan Nadel’s “Art/Time” series? Dedicated to the lesser-known, often tripped-out and fantastical also-rans along the byways of comics history, the books remind us of a parallel universe that stretched far beyond Captain America…
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Sweet Sounds for Spring: Music Roundup
Many gifted young musicians live professional lives outside the framework of the troubled CD industry. Alexander Fiterstein, a preternaturally poised and mature young clarinetist who emigrated to Israel at age two from Belarus, was awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant last year. When he is not busy tweeting to his fans, Fiterstein’s artistry may…
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David Grossman, Paul Auster and a Night With Minor Stars
Last night was the first event at the International Writers’ Festival that felt as if there were really star writers among us. Paul Auster and David Grossman entered the event tent through sides held open to accommodate the 500 people crammed into the tent area, inside and outside the tent walls. With a welcome far…
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Are Steve Carell and Paul Rudd Schmucks?
Paul Rudd and Steve Carell will be united once again in bro-mance in the upcoming “Dinner for Schmucks,” due out this July, according to an article in yesterday’s New York Times. The movie, which will be directed by Jay Roach of “Meet the Fockers” and “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” is inspired by the 1998 French…
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Forward ‘Nigun Project’ Contributor Nominated for a Tony
The Forward has a Tony Award nominee in its midst. The nominations were announced today, and among those up for Broadway’s top honor is Sahr Ngaujah — nominated for his leading role in the musical “Fela!” about the life of the Nigerian afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. As you may remember, Sahr worked with Forward artist-in-residence…
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