Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture How Jewish alliances fueled the rise of Vernon Jordan
Vernon Jordan, who died in March of this year, would have turned 86 today, Aug. 15, which provides a good occasion to examine how a Black power broker and civil rights advocate used Jewish alliances to further his goals. More than a mere attorney, Jordan was a fixer and kingmaker. He owed his entry into…
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Culture Remembering Steven Weinberg, the Nobel-prize winning physicist who argued with God
The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, who died on July 23 at age 88, was publicly proud of being an atheist. But he retained a Jewish structure to his thinking throughout his life. Weinberg received the Nobel for his innovations, building on the work of Albert Einstein, in helping to understand how the tiniest components…
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Culture For 50 years of Greenpeace, inspiration from Jewish values and visionaries
This year, as Greenpeace celebrates 50 years of environmental activism, it’s a good time for a look at the powerful Jewish inspirations that have helped to inspire the non-governmental organization throughout its history. With the stated goal of ensuring the ability of the Earth to “nurture life in all its diversity,” Greenpeace campaigns on issues…
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Culture Why there were more Jews than Christians in Dante’s ‘Paradise’ (and no Jews of his time in Dante’s ‘Hell’)
This year, commemorations of the 700th anniversary of the death of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of “The Divine Comedy,” have scarcely addressed the subject of how Dante wrote about Jews. Dante places a number of Old Testament Jews, including Abraham, Sarah, Rachel and Joshua in Paradise. Because some of the limited space is…
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Culture A contrarian artist who took inspiration from a Hasidic rabbi and a Vietnamese general
The French artist Christian Boltanski, who died on Bastille Day at age 76, expressed emotions through conceptual art associated with Judaism as well as universal experience. His Ukrainian Jewish father escaped deportation during the Nazi Occupation of Paris by hiding in a space under the floorboards of the family apartment for 18 months. Boltanski’s mother,…
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Culture For Laurel and Hardy, a surprisingly deep Jewish history
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first appearance in the same film, “The Lucky Dog” (1921) by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the comedy duo whose work featured a surprising amount of Yiddishkeit. At the start of the 1930 film “Blotto,” during a moment of domestic discord, Laurel puzzles over a Yiddish newspaper,…
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Culture The singularly Jewish tragedy of Maria Callas
For decades, devotees have adulated the soprano Maria Callas. who was regularly compared to the 19th century Italian Jewish diva Giuditta Pasta, in terms of the works she performed and her stage impact. The American Jewish writer Wayne Koestenbaum produced a paean of praise, lauding Callas for valuing “expressivity over loveliness.” Worshipers who knew Callas…
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Culture Arturo Schwarz — lover of art, paragon of altruism
Visitors to the Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Museum, Negev Museum of Art in Be’er Sheva, and National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome will recognize the name of Arturo Schwarz, who died June 23 at age 97. Schwarz was the munificent donor of a splendid collection of Dada and surrealist art to these institutions and…
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