Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Books S. An-sky: More Than Just ‘The Dybbuk’
Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions Eugene M. Avrutin, ed. Brandeis University Press University Press of New England 2009; 228 pages $39.95 For frenziedly creative polymaths, the French may have Jean Cocteau, but the Jews have Belarus-born Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport, who wrote poems, fiction, ethnography and plays under the pen name…
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Life Samuel Ullman: Japan’s Favorite Jewish Poet
Although Japanese society has been afflicted by the phenomenon known as “antisemitism without Jews,” as detailed in David G. Goodman and Masanori Miyazawa’s thoughtful study, “Jews in the Japanese Mind: The History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype” (Lexington, 2000), remarkable cases of philosemitism also exist. Of the latter, few are more surprising than the…
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Life Being Composer Emmerich Kálmán Means Never Saying You’re Sári.
The Hungarian Jewish composer of light music, Kálmán Imre (1882 –1953), better known by the Germanized version of his name, Emmerich Kálmán, continues to enjoy cult status in East and Central Europe. American audiences, though, might need reminding about Kálmán’s past glories like the Broadway hit “Sári” from 1914, which will be presented in concert…
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Life From Papa Haydn to Tateh Haydn?
Among the many commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the death of composer Joseph Haydn is a compelling new study from Cambridge University Press, “Haydn’s Jews: Representation and Reception on the Operatic Stage” by Caryl Clark, a University of Toronto musicologist. Ms. Clark points out that in Eisenstadt, Austria, the palace of the Eszterházy family,…
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Culture Loving and Loathing
A longtime secret treasure of American film criticism, Manny Farber is finally in the limelight, a year after his death of bone cancer at age 91. Farber is being honored with the publication of “Farber On Film: The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber,” an 824-page tome from the Library of America, collecting many long-overlooked…
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Life French Jewish Philosopher Alain Finkielkraut Cracks the Books
Having survived a bout with lymphoma last fall, the French Jewish philosopher and essayist Alain Finkielkraut has come back fighting, with an ambitious and thoughtful new book on literature, “Un coeur intelligent” (An Intelligent Heart; Stock Flammarion, Paris ), an examination of nine novels, including Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain” (2000) and Ukrainian Jewish writer…
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Culture Architect Richard Meier’s Jewish Inspirations
The Newark-born American Jewish architect Richard Meier, who celebrates his 75th birthday on October 12, is being feted with an all-too-brief exhibit, “Meier 75” at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. The exhibit is scheduled to end on Meier’s birthday, which shows party pooper planning on the part of the Cooper-Hewitt committee that have chosen to…
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Life Hungarian Jewish Composer György Kurtág Hits the Mainstream
On October 15th, the University of Rochester Press will publish “György Kurtág: Three Interviews and Ligeti Homages”, a tribute to the 83-year-old Hungarian Jewish composer with many charming details about his life, such as that around age six, he hoped to write a “Jewish symphony in E minor with the title ‘Eternal Hope.’” Although this…
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