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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Shekel Shekel Bills Y’all: World’s Richest Israelis
Ten of the world’s wealthiest people are Israeli, according to this year’s Forbes’ Rich List. The ten billionaires join the company of the prince of Saudia Arabia, Itlay’s Prime Minister, Oprah and Mark Zuckerberg, and about 1,000 other people around the globe who have 10 digits in the bank. (Yeah you heard us right.) Here’s…
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A Hebrew School Dropout’s Guide To Religion and Weight Loss
It’s completely appropriate — and not a little ironic — that Dave Konig’s crisis-of-faith monologue, “Hebrew School Dropout,” is opening off-Broadway at the Actor’s Temple Theater, which is also the functioning synagogue known as Congregation Ezrath Israel. “[I] Love the Actors’ Temple,” Konig wrote the Forward in an e-mail. “You know who used to go…
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Alberto Moravia’s Artistic Activism
Art is its own form of activism, we are reminded by a major new biography of the Italian novelist Alberto Moravia, published by les éditions Flammarion in Paris. Born Alberto Pincherle (his father was a Jewish architect) in 1907, Moravia was a cousin of Carlo and Nello Rosselli, the Jewish anti-fascist activists who were murdered…
The Latest
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Who Is a Ball-Playing Jew?
Play ball, already! For those who are in the “fascinated by Jews who are professional athletes” category, a new website will help you indulge your yenta streak. JewishBaseballNews.com, a website that debuted this week, follows all Jewish Major League Baseball players, showing how they perform, as well as how they fare compared with the rest…
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Meet the Mets’ Rookie Mensch
Jewish Mets fans across the city are abuzz over news of this season’s first-baseman, 23-year-old Ike Davis (actually, Isaac Benjamin Davis), the first Jewish kid to ever come up solely through the Mets farm system and make the big league team. Davis, who’s batting an impressive .355 in his first 10 games, is being hyped…
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News from Uncle Siggy: Freud’s Ever-Present Influence
In May, Viggo Mortensen, an actor of Danish-Canadian ancestry, will start filming David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method,” in the role of Sigmund Freud. Gentile actors have frequently played Freud: Max von Sydow in “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” (1993); Alec Guinness in “Lovesick” (1983); Montgomery Clift in “Freud” (1962); and Farley Granger in “The Wound…
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The Upside of Volcanic Ash: Dirt-Cheap Flowers in Israel
In every international crisis, natural or man-made, there are winners. Often they are cynical self-serving business folk who profit from the misery of others, but here in Israel, those benefiting from the recent grounding of flights due to volcanic ash are members of the general public. You may know that on a daily basis Israel…
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Sandra Bullock Hires a Mohel
Sandra Bullock’s husband, Jesse James, may have been photographed in Nazi garb, giving a Nazi salute, but Bullock wants to make it perfectly clear that she’s no antisemite. And she went so far as to have a bris for her newly adopted son, Louis. Because she and James wanted to keep the adoption a secret…
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Five Torahs Valued at Up To $250,000 Stolen From Brooklyn Synagogue
Five torahs valued at up to $50,000 a piece were stolen from a synagogue in Brooklyn yesterday morning, saddening congregants and the area’s Jewish community. Police said the burglar may have entered the Karlsburg Synagogue (also known as the Khal Yirei Hashem Synagogue) in the Borough Park neighborhood through either an open or unlocked window….
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Rediscovering Free-spirited Photographers Lillian Bassman and Paul Himmel
At 92, Brooklyn-born Lillian Bassman and her husband Paul Himmel, who died last year at age 94, are enjoying remarkable, if belated, fame. “Lillian Bassman: Women,” a lavish new volume by Deborah Solomon, highlights Bassman’s elegantly abstract black-and-white fashion photographs from the 1940s through the 1960s for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar. Solomon also notes the…
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Isaac Tshuva, the Everyman
Isaac Tshuva, the Israeli energy king whose $2 billion net worth makes him the country’s sixth-richest citizen, is not one for opulence. Yes, at 61, Tshuva owns the Delek Group, which helped discover the Tamar field, 7.7 trillion cubic feet of gas near the Haifa coast that could help wean Israel from imported coal and…
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Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Zohran Mamdani once said mayoral candidates should pledge to boycott Israel. Now that he’s running, he’s not so forthcoming.
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News CAMERA, pro-Israel media watchdog, fires longtime CEO, spurring public acrimony
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Yiddish אַ קורס וועגן די ייִדישע דיאַלעקטן אינעם אַלטן ייִשובֿA course about the Yiddish dialects of the ‘Old Yishuv’
דער ירושלימער ייִדיש שטאַמט פֿון ליטוויש ייִדיש בעת דער צפֿתער ייִדיש שטאַמט פֿון אוקראַיִניש ייִדיש.
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Opinion Don’t be grateful two hostages’ bodies were recovered. Be furious.
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