Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze The Witty Inclemency of Clement Freud
When Sir Clement Freud died last spring in London, the U.K. media’s outpouring of affection surprised some readers. A grandson of Sigmund Freud who was no longer on speaking terms with his brother, the painter Lucian Freud, Sir Clement was a journalist, bon vivant, television personality, and onetime Member of Parliament, but none of his…
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The Schmooze Bloomsday Celebrations Worldwide
June 16th is Bloomsday, the day on which all the activities of Leopold Bloom, protagonist of James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses,” occur. Bloom, as Joyce fanatics will tell you, is the son of Rudolf Virág, a Hungarian Jew from Szombathely who changed his name to Rudolph Bloom upon immigrating to Ireland. Joyce based his portrait in…
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The Schmooze Are You Thrizzled?
If you liked Eli Valley’s Bucky Shvitz, you may soon be asking yourself: “Am I thrizzled?” Among the many innovative cartoonists published by the Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books, Michael Kupperman is surely one of the most original. Kupperman popped up a decade ago as the writer and illustrator of the offbeat “Snake ‘n’ Bacon’s Cartoon Cabaret”…
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The Schmooze Who Killed Haim Arlozoroff?
The Cairo-born French Jewish ethnopsychiatrist Tobie Nathan is a man of many talents. A prolific novelist as well as teacher, Nathan recently published “My Patient, Sigmund Freud” with Les Éditions Perrin. Nathan’s new novel, “Who Killed Arlozoroff?” from Les Éditions Grasset reveals other fields of knowledge. It starts with a French journalist with Egyptian Jewish…
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The Schmooze James Levine: First the Bad News…
The news, announced today, that Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor James Levine is bowing out of his scheduled concerts at this summer’s Tanglewood Music Festival to continue recovering from back surgery, raises the time-honored question, more often asked about baseball than classical music: “What does it mean for the Jews?” Tanglewood, long the stomping grounds of…
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The Schmooze How ‘Oyfn Pripetshik’ Traveled the World
Anyone observing the past century of Russian music may wonder why, in spite of all discouragements, so many Jewish overachievers managed to compose and perform immortal music? This basic question is masterfully addressed in a forthcoming book, out today from Yale University Press, “The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire.”…
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The Schmooze Willy Ronis, France’s Photographer of the Working Poor, Exhibited at the Mint
The great French Jewish photographer Willy Ronis died last year at age 99, and until August 22, his centenary exhibit “Willy Ronis: the Poetics of Engagement” (“Willy Ronis, une poétique de l’engagement”) can be seen, oddly enough, at the Paris Mint, la Monnaie de Paris. Whereas Ronis was a left-wing defender of the downtrodden working…
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The Schmooze Leon Levinstein’s Powerful, Pitiless Street Photography
Some Jewish photographers embrace subject matter which plays better overseas than in the United States. One example is Weegee, born Usher Fellig in Złoczów, whose photos of low class nightlife and crime were infused with a raucous gusto that charmed Europe decades before he received adequate recognition in America. Leon Levinstein, an even more difficult…
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