Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of Walt Whitman
The poet Walt Whitman, whose bicentenary is on May 31, found universal inspiration in all Americans, including Jews. As a young journalist and newspaper editor in March 1842, he wrote in “The New York Aurora” under the headline “The More the Merrier”: “Our Jewish citizens have lately taken quite a fancy to The Aurora. They…
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Culture Remembering Judith Kerr, Whose Children’s Books Turned Anguish Into Hope
The beloved children’s book author Judith Kerr, who died on May 22 at age 95, proved that one way of coping with the tragedies of modern Jewish history was with an appetite for creative work. Born Anna Judith Gertrud Helene Kerr to an uncommonly creative German Jewish family, she would write and illustrate such endearing…
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Culture Remembering Herman Wouk’s Bestselling Confidence And Modesty
In the annals of best-selling authors, modesty is a rare element. The American Jewish writer Herman Wouk, who has died at the age of 103, is a happy exception to this rule. Despite his fame for the novel, play, and filmed versions of the “Caine Mutiny,”, “The Winds of War,” and “Marjorie Morningstar,” Wouk repeatedly…
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Culture Why Is The Cannes Film Festival Honoring This Ally Of French Anti-Semitism?
This year’s Cannes Film Festival, starting May 14, will honor the French film star Alain Delon with a Palme d’honneur prize for acting, a lifetime achievement award that has previously gone to such performers as Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Delon, now 83, has played a hired killer in “The Samurai” (1967) directed…
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Culture How Vivian B. Mann Turned Deuteronomy’s Tears into Jewish Art Exultation
Vivian Beth Mann, who died on May 6 at age 75, exemplified the moral duty of art historians by rediscovering the cultural and religious past of the Jewish people. Her pioneering studies of Jewish culture in the Middle Ages in Spain; Italy; Turkey; and Morocco continue to inspire younger scholars. Whether writing on court Jews…
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Art What Jews Might Have Lost In the Fire at Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral
As flames devastated Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral on April 15, more than just a worldwide center of Catholic worship and an architectural masterpiece was threatened. Jewish history is also reflected in the cathedral, for better and for worse. When its massive construction began almost one thousand years ago, Notre-Dame de Paris reflected theological messages that…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of ‘Dumbo’
Tim Burton’s remake for Disney of “Dumbo” about an elephant whose oversized ears enable him to fly, has received mixed reviews. Some filmgoers prefer the classic 1941 version, also from Disney. Yet indisputably, the story for both originated in a book published in 1939 by Helen Aberson (1907-1999), a Syracuse-born writer of Ukrainian Jewish origin….
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Culture Remembering Avram Lyon’s Holistic Approach to Jewish Life
Avram “Avi” Lyon, who died on April 1 at age 76, was more than just a labor activist defending the rights of downtrodden workers. He epitomized a holistic approach to Jewish ethics and culture. With crystalline clarity, he linked Jewish ethics as an indissociable element of Jewish ritual. As former head of Jewish Labor Committee,…
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