Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Out and About: PEN Literary Awards; Schwartz’s Deli, the Musical

  • How a machinist named Martin Cohen became the pre-eminent photographer of New York’s Latin music scene.

  • Montreal’s Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen is set to be turned into a musical.

  • Is it time to update the Hebrew alphabet for the Internet age?

  • Read an interview with Allen Ginsberg collaborator and “Howl!” illustrator Eric Drooker.

  • The trailer for “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” is now out.

  • The Jewish Manuscript Project gives us a peek inside the creative process of poet David Lehman.

  • Teruah offers an appreciation of Jeremiah Lockwood’s Nigun Project, but also has some issues with it.

  • David Mamet has been honored with a PEN American Center literary award for “Master American Dramatist,” as has Michael Scammell for his biography of Arthur Koestler (reviewed in the Forward here). The $25,000 Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction went to Don DeLillo.

  • In more somber news, Isaac Babel’s widow and Moscow subway designer Antonina Pirozhkova, ’50s heartthrob Eddie Fisher, and classical music critic Jacob Siskind have passed away.

  • Tomorrow night is Jake Marmer’s very excellent-sounding “Jazz Talmud.”

  • Today is the 200th yarhtzeit of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, and one community is celebrating with — what else? — a “Nachmanifest!”

  • Today is (or would have been) George Gershwin’s 112th birthday, which is as good a reason as any for a little “Fantasia”:

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.