Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze 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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The Schmooze 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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Culture Private Genius, Public Spotlight
A photography exhibit radiating quiet humanity, honoring the Lithuanian-Jewish photographer Izis, who was born Israëlis Bidermanas, is warming the City of Paris’s chilly official administration building, l’Hôtel de Ville. “Izis, Paris of Dreams” runs until May 29 and is a must-see for anyone visiting the city. A splendid catalog from Les Éditions Flammarion explains the…
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The Schmooze 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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The Schmooze It’s hard To Be a Rock-Drummer: Max Weinberg’s Fate in the Balance
Rumors are swirling furiously on entertainment blogs about whether Max Weinberg, Conan O’Brien’s longtime drummer and comedic foil, will be rehired for Conan’s upcoming TBS cable show. The kerfuffle started when Weinberg’s fellow Jewish rock musician Al Kooper (born Alan Kuperschmidt) told an interviewer that Weinberg had been “fired” because of conflicts with Weinberg’s performing…
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The Schmooze Antisemitic Riots in Oslo: Part of a Trend?
According to “The Anti-Jewish Riots in Oslo,” a cogent new book by Norwegian historian Eirik Eiglad, the riots of January 2009 in Oslo, ostensibly against the war in Gaza, actually followed “age-old patterns of antisemitic hatred.” Himself beaten, kicked, and spit on by demonstrators, Eiglad, who had not joined any side, recounts how a deranged…
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The Schmooze Sanford Friedman’s ‘Heroic or Meritorious Achievement’
A brave alternative to 1950s “Stoolpigeon Culture,” as described in Joseph Litvak’s influential “The Un-Americans: Jews, the Blacklist, and Stoolpigeon Culture,” the novelist Sanford Friedman, who died April 20 at age 81, proudly assumed his membership in several minority groups. Leftist, gay and Jewish, Friedman was a Horace Mann School student, where he became friends…
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The Schmooze Claude Sarraute: A Disobedient Daughter
The French Jewish journalist Claude Sarraute, 82, is the daughter of the noted Russian Jewish novelist Nathalie Sarraute (born Natalia Tcherniak). A new memoir from Éditions Plon, “Before You Forget Everything!” explains how Sarraute consciously avoided following in her mother’s footsteps. The elder Sarraute was the author of abstract, sober philosophical narratives such as “Do…
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