Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture On Bugs Bunny’s 80th birthday, how Jewish is that wascally wabbit anyway?
As we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the release of “A Wild Hare,” the first animated short starring Bugs Bunny, the question arises: How Jewish was the sassy, anti-authoritarian rabbit? Since 1940, Jewish audiences have taken Bugs to their heart for his anarchic energy in lightning-fast short films of concentrated intensity and visual quality, especially…
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Culture We should talk about the Jewish backstory of ‘All About Eve’
This year marks the 70th anniversary of “All About Eve,” the landmark screen drama with a backstory that implies how risky Jewish identity, whether overt or repressed, could be circa 1950. Written and directed by the American Jewish filmmaker Joseph L. Mankiewicz, “All About Eve” was adapted from a short story inspired by an ambitious…
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Culture How Jewish themes inspired Ennio Morricone
The Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone, who died on July 6 at age 91, is cherished by film fans for his scores to Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone as well as Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (2015), for which he received an Academy Award. Yet as Morricone sometimes pointed out to journalists, his artistry…
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Culture Why comedy was the perfect career for a Bronx-bred Jewish boy like Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner, who died on June 28 at age 98, was that most unusual of performers, a funny straight man. A collaborative artist of uncommon skill, he is perhaps most celebrated for having created and written the 1960s sitcom “The Dick van Dyke Show,” originally intended for himself to star in. Dismissing rumors that producers…
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Culture Remembering Jean Daniel — a journalist of unshakeable distinction and integrity
Jean Daniel, who died in February at age 99, was born Jean Daniel Bensaïd to a Jewish family in Blida, northern Algeria. He spent his long life analyzing his feelings of Jewish identity in memoirs, while also producing a mountain of political commentary as founder and executive editor of Le Nouvel Observateur. It is perhaps…
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Culture In ‘Gone With the Wind,’ a complicated Jewish subtext
The news that HBO Max streaming service has temporarily removed “Gone with the Wind” from its library to be refurbished with historical information and a “denouncement” of its ethnic and racial prejudices raises the question of how the film’s Yiddishkeit influenced this content. The 1939 film based on Margaret Mitchell’s novel had Jewish elements, starting…
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Culture What was Jewish about Jimmy Durante? More than you might think.
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of the entertainer Jimmy Durante (1893-1980), whose artistry was linked with Yiddishkeit. Durante’s nickname, Schnozzola, is an American adaptation of the Yiddish slang term schnoz for nose. An able jazz pianist and endearing comedian, Durante was also capable of poignant singing. When he performed the German…
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Culture When Jews were kings (and opium lords) in Shanghai
Author of “A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe” and “Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between Blacks and Jews in America” Jonathan Kaufman teaches at Northeastern University. His new book, “The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China” tells of two Iraqi Jewish…
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