Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture Fiddlers on the Wane
In the world of Jewish strings, two major but disparate commemorations mark 2009: the centenary of Polish-born Szymon Goldberg, and the 10-year anniversary of the death of Yehudi Menuhin, born seven years later in New York to Belarusian-Jewish parents. A century ago, the violin was a passport out of the ghetto, with Eastern European child…
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Film & TV An ‘Unmistaken Child’ Crosses the USA
Released in June from Oscilloscope Distribution, the documentary “Unmistaken Child” by Jerusalem-born Nati Baratz, a graduate of Tel-Aviv University’s Film School, continues its triumphal march across America, with scheduled screenings in Honolulu (Sept. 9); Cleveland (Sept. 11); Great Barrington, MA (Sept. 11); Key West (Sept. 11); and San Francisco (Sept. 13), and further showings into…
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Culture Whoa, Nelly!
French-Jewish filmmaker and writer Nelly Kaplan, born in Buenos Aires in 1936 (some sources say 1931) to Russian-Jewish parents, has long been the incarnation of a particularly romantic ideal. She is featured as part of the first major exhibition of women artists and surrealism to be held in Europe, Angels of Anarchy, opening on September…
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Life Isaiah Berlin at 100
Commemorations continue apace for the hundredth birthday of the historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997). Born in Riga to a Russian Jewish family, he is being honored by the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Toronto (Sept 3-6); a Harvard conference from September 25-26 and other academic events. Yet much remains also for general…
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Culture Photographs That Are Deserved
French-Jewish photographer Willy Ronis, born in 1910, has never been more popular. Honored at a special exhibit at this summer’s Rencontres d’Arles photography festival on view in Southern France until September 14 (alongside such counterculture stars as America’s Nan Goldin), Ronis has recent books out from a flurry of international publishers, including Taschen, Phaidon, Gallimard…
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Culture Genesis Continues
Those who accuse the French arts world of lacking a moral compass should consider the magnetic north of Ariane Mnouchkine. Her Parisian avant-garde ensemble, Théâtre du Soleil (Theater of the Sun), has just completed a short engagement at New York’s [Lincoln Center Festival]( An invitation that recognized both her current virtuosity and her achievements over…
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Life Amos Gitai Finds Inspiration in Josephus
Opening this year’s ongoing Avignon Festival in southeastern France, “The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness” is a production inspired by Josephus’s “War of the Jews,” conceived and staged by Israeli director Amos Gitai. Gitai’s uncompromising films include “Kadosh” (1999), “Kippur” (2000), “Alila” (2003) and “Free Zone “(2005). Possibly misleadingly,…
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Life Mme. Veil Gets the Wax Treatment
The French lawyer and politician Simone Veil (born 1927), profiled in The Forward last November on the occasion of her election to the Académie française, keeps going from strength to strength. Her latest honor is to have her wax effigy displayed at Paris’s Musée Grévin, as of July 9. The typically imperturbable Mme. Veil, who…
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