Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Photographer Gerda Taro, Out of the Shadows at Last?
The German Jewish photographer Gerda Taro (born Gerta Pohorylle in Stuttgart, to a family of Polish Jewish origin) has long been overshadowed by her companion, the legendary photographer Robert Capa. However, that may soon change. Taro (1910- 1937) was the first female war photographer, capturing powerful images of the Spanish Civil War, and was sadly…
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The Schmooze Jewish Feminist Singer Lesley Gore: From the ‘60s to Today
Fans of feminist Jewish pop song will not want to miss Lesley Gore (born Lesley Sue Goldstein in 1946) at New York’s Joe’s Pub on April 22 or at one of her upcoming concerts around the country. From her earliest hits, like 1964’s defiant “You Don’t Own Me,” Gore was at once independent, self-assured, and…
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The Schmooze The Tragic Visions of Author Jakov Lind Re-Examined
The Austrian-British writer Jakov Lind, (born Heinz Landwirth to a Viennese Jewish family) led a wildly adventurous life of the kind which other authors, like Jerzy Kosinski, merely invented for themselves. After the 1938 Anschluss, Lind (1927-2007) was sent on a “kindertransport” (children’s train) to Holland. There, in 1943, he went underground, posing as a…
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The Schmooze Who is a better $5000 date: Stephen Sondheim or Robert Rubin?
The not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater Playwrights Horizons, ever alert to finding new fundraising attractions, has decided that this year’s Online Auction — which ends April 29 — will include dinner with songwriter Stephen Sondheim, who turned 80 on March 22. The only hitch is that the leading bid so far is already $5,200.00. For bidders eager…
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The Schmooze Nancy Spero and Leon Golub: A Politically Relevant Artistic Couple
The painters and married couple, Nancy Spero and Leon Golub, epitomize the concept of engaged political action through art. The problems addressed in their works, from political torture to ethnic cleansing, are ever-more timely and unresolved. Although Golub died in 2004 and Spero last year, it is only natural that both are present in New…
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The Schmooze Israel’s Keshet Eilon: a Musical Center for Greats and Beginners Alike
The Keshet Eilon Music Center, founded in the Western Galilee at Kibbutz Eilon in 1990, is known internationally for its three-week Summer International Violin Master Course, a benefit concert for which will be held at New York’s Zankel Hall on April 24. Recent students at Keshet Eilon have confronted a terrifyingly vigorous teacher, octogenarian violin…
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The Schmooze Singing Despite Tyranny: The German Jewish Culture Association
Readers of the moving family memoir “The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany” by Martin Goldsmith (Wiley, 2001) will recall how in 1933, a German Jewish Culture Association (Kulturbund Deutscher Juden) was formed with Nazi permission, which two years later was renamed the Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Culture Association), omitting…
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Culture Spark Flies
Muriel Spark: The Biography By Martin Stannard W.W. Norton & Company, 656 pages, $35 The Scottish novelist Muriel Spark is mostly famous for a single book, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” made into an Oscar-winning film, and for her 1954 conversion to Catholicism. Now, a new biography by Martin Stannard offers fascinating new information…
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