Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture Jules Feiffer: A Permanently Enraged Jewish Cartoonist
Backing Into Forward: A Memoir By Jules Feiffer Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 464 pages, $30 At 81, legendary Bronx-born cartoonist Jules Feiffer has accumulated a lifetime of slights, snubs and insults, and he expresses his anger about them all in his recently published autobiography, “Backing Into Forward: A Memoir.” Author of the noir play “Little Murders”…
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Books Yiddish on the Psychoanalyst’s Couch: USA vs. France
In the English-speaking world, psychoanalyzing Yiddish, and the way it is spoken, is often done with a dollop of humor, as in “Born To Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods” by Michael Wex, appreciatively reviewed by the Forward. French Jews, on the other hand tend to approach the subject comparatively soberly, as…
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Books The Susan Sontag of the Venetian Ghetto: Sarra Copia Sulam
According to Don Harrán, Sarra Copia Sulam was the first Italian Jewish woman to “excel” as a public literary figure, writing in various forms and leaving a “personal imprint on them.” She was a kind of Susan Sontag of the Venetian Ghetto. Sulam was also prominent because of her beauty and wealth (her husband was…
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The Schmooze Reality and Dreams: Michael Feinstein and Dame Edna Together at Last
The Ohio-born Jewish entertainer Michael Feinstein opened on Broadway on March 18 in a musical review, “All About Me,” co-starring the Australian comedian Barry Humphries (better known as Dame Edna Everage). As Feinstein explains in his 1995 memoir, “Nice Work If You Can Get It: My Life in Rhythm and Rhyme” (Hyperion), he has devoted…
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The Schmooze Rabbi Josy Eisenberg, France’s Jewish Media Star
At 76, Rabbi Josy Eisenberg is a longtime representative of Judaism for the French public. He is the genial host of the half-hour religious program “La Source de Vie,” broadcast in various formats since 1962, and he helped write the 1973 hit comedy film “The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob,” starring comedian Louis de Funès….
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The Schmooze Dance of the Veil: French Jewish Feminist Enters the Académie française
Back in 2008, the Forward celebrated when French Jewish feminist Simone Veil, an Auschwitz survivor, was elected to the prestigious Académie française. On Thursday March 18, Veil was formally inducted into the Academy, welcomed with a speech by the veteran author Jean d’Ormesson, who is so stuffy and stately that in France, The Jean D’Ormesson…
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Books Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot vs. Hitler
Agatha Christie (1890–1976), has long been underestimated by readers and fellow writers alike, despite her 80 novels which have sold a reported four billion copies. For example, the astute mystery writer P. D. James, in her newly published “Talking About Detective Fiction,” complains that Christie, with her “pasteboard characters,” has not had a “profound influence…
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The Schmooze Guys & Dolls & Bagels & Animals: American Jewish Composer Frank Loesser at 100
Some Jewish Broadway tunesmiths were gifted with longevity, like Irving Berlin, the Methuselah of Tin Pan Alley, who was still around to celebrate his centenary in 1988. By contrast, the much-beloved Frank Loesser — who would have turned 100 on June 29 — died over 40 years ago at the premature age of only 59….
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