Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Books Too Gross for the 21st Century? Jewish American Cartoonist Milt Gross
On February 7, at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, a new publication from New York University Press, “Is Diss A System? A Milt Gross Comic Reader” edited by Ari Y. Kelman, will be presented. Gross (born in 1895) of Russian Jewish ancestry, drew comic strips of wild slapstick energy, following in the violence-for-laughs tradition…
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The Schmooze George London, a Singer of Russian-Jewish Majesty
On February 7, the George London Foundation will present a special recital at the Morgan Library in New York, with pianist Jeffrey Cohen accompanying singers June Anderson and Sean Panikkar, as prelude to this year’s George London Competition Finals on March 19 also at the Morgan Library. The family of Canadian-Jewish baritone George London (born…
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The Schmooze Funny Nazis? The Return (In Bulk) of Hogan’s Heroes
The CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Release of a 28 DVD-set, “Hogan’s Heroes: The Komplete Series, Kommandant’s Kollection” reminds us of this early effort to find belated humor in Hitler’s war machine. Writer/director Billy Wilder’s much-admired 1953 film “Stalag 17,” was adapted from a play of the same name by two former POWs, and subtitled: “a comedy…
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The Schmooze Elliott Erwitt: An American Jewish Photographer’s Fierce Wit
Photography lovers who will be in Italy should try to see “Elliott Erwitt’s Rome,” an exhibit which opened in November 13, 2009 and remains on view until January 31. An accompanying volume published by teNeues sheds light on Erwitt. Born in Paris in 1928 to a Russian-Jewish family which moved to Milan but fled Mussolini…
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The Schmooze Admiring Blum: A Great French Jewish Statesman Celebrated on Film
For visitors to the New York Jewish Film Festival, a must-see on January 18-20 is a new hour-length documentary, “Leon Blum: For All Mankind” about the French socialist politician. Written by Blum’s grandson Antoine Malamoud and directed by University of Alabama Professor Jean Bodon, the film offers a mere sketch of an eventful life, and…
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Culture Camondo Splendor
The fate of the Camondo family illustrates just how perilous it can be to be generous to the people of France. An exemplary exhibit, The Splendour of the House of Camondo: From Constantinople to Paris, 1806–1845, which opened November 6, 2009, at Paris’s Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme (Museum of Jewish Art and History)…
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Culture Paul Celan’s Letters
Biographers have a vested interest in hyping their subjects, but when Paul Celan’s biographer, John Felstiner, calls the latter “Europe’s most compelling postwar poet,” surely few can argue. Like most books on the Romanian Celan, Festiner’s “Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew” (Yale University Press, 2001) underlines how his wartime experience in a forced-labor camp (while…
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The Schmooze Masterworks and Kitsch: Russian Jewish Artists Ill-Served in San Diego
Discerning lovers of Jewish art have until January 17, 2010 to see the exhibit “American Artists from the Russian Empire” which opened in October at the San Diego Museum of Art. They will need to be discerning, because although the exhibit features major works of interest by Ben Shahn, Louise Nevelson and Mark Rothko, greeting–card…
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