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The Schmooze Times Names Best Jewish Books of Year
Photo: Martyna Starosta (JTA) — The New York Times Book Review published its “100 Notable Books of 2014” on its website Tuesday and, not surprisingly, given the whole People of the Book moniker, a number of the fiction and nonfiction books highlighted this year are of Jewish interest. (The number of Jewish authors on general…
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Culture Some of Martin Amis’s Best Friends Are Jews. Really.
● The Zone of interest By Martin Amis Knopf, 320 pages, $26.95 Martin Amis’s new novel “The Zone of Interest,” which is set in post-Wannsee Auschwitz, is dedicated “[t]o those who survived and to those who did not; to the memory of Primo Levi… and to the memory of Paul Celan.” The dedication continues: “to…
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The Schmooze A Lost World in an Old Box of Film
In 2009, writer Glenn Kurtz was sifting through a closet in his parent’s Florida home when he discovered a reel of 16mm Kodachrome color film in a musty cardboard box that had belonged to his grandparents, David and Liza Kurtz. As prosperous Jewish American tourists, the Kurtz’s decided to take a six-week summer vacation through…
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The Schmooze My Year of Not Shopping
All images courtesy Sarah Lazarovic Equal parts autobiography, treatise, art project, and social commentary, Sarah Lazarovic’s “A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy” (Penguin Books) chronicles a year in which the author sublimated consumer urges by drawing things instead of purchasing them. But the book’s much more than a visual diary. Lazarovic’s elegant,…
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The Schmooze Writers Line Up For Israel’s Top Literary Prize
Reuven Namdar in New York. Photo by Beth Kissileff. In a time when the famed British Man Booker Prize has been opened to writers in English from all countries, Israel too has achieved a milestone. For the first time in its 14 years, the Sapir Prize, given by Mif’al Ha-Payis (Israel’s national lottery), has on…
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Opinion Is Exile Good for the Jews?
The political scientist Alan Wolfe published his latest book about the Jewish diaspora, “At Home in Exile,” in late October, just weeks before Sheldon Adelson uttered his most recent outrageous remarks. Too bad. Adelson’s unfortunate rant would have provided another example to prove Wolfe’s point. Adelson, the zillionaire philanthropist and businessman, is not known for…
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Forward 50 2014 Molly Antopol
Despite her comparative youth, debut author Molly Antopol, 36, is something of a throwback. In her 2014 short-story collection, “The UnAmericans,” the San Francisco-based writer chronicled the gamut of the 20th-century American immigrant experience. Her keen eye and knack for mimicry enabled her to expose the lives of a wide array of characters — East…
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Culture Philip Roth Types Are Outdated? Tell Us Something We Don’t Know!
The most surprising thing about “Listen Up Philip” is how boring it is, despite the fast-paced dialogue, the New York City setting — heck, even despite Elisabeth Moss. The best part of the movie is the hilarious, pitch-perfect montage of jackets of books “written” by its various characters. Unfortunately, the characters are nowhere near as…
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish World The day I, a Jewish kid from the Bronx, left a Vermont salesperson flabbergasted
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News Adam Schiff, California’s Jewish senator-elect and Trump’s nemesis, says the US is ‘very much weakened as a democracy’
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Culture How the biggest antisemitic riot in America transformed Jewish history
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Music Promising ‘no stupid Hanukkah songs,’ The Leevees strive for a ‘two-song solution’
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