Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Theater Ricky Jay Performs His Final Vanishing Act
The American Jewish magician Ricky Jay, who died on November 24 at age 72, achieved an unusual conjuring trick while still in his teens; he managed to make his parents disappear from his life. Born Richard Jay Potash in Brooklyn and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Jay had parents ill-suited to the sort of obsessive,…
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Music The Secret Jewish History Of The Weavers
The Weavers, an American folk music quartet, sold millions of records in the late 1940s and early 50s. Its two Jewish performers, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, were joined by two non-Jews, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger. In the 1960s, Bernie Krause, another American Jewish singer, replaced Seeger in the group. Their hits included “Goodnight, Irene”…
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Culture How Lovely P.G. Wodehouse Was — Such A Shame About The Anti-Semitism
On October 15, Westminster Abbey in London announced plans to dedicate a memorial to P.G. Wodehouse, the humorist whose characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster have amused millions. Among reported devotees were many readers of Jewish origin, from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to the classicist Abraham Wasserstein (1921-1995) of the Hebrew University. Wodehouse, who died in 1975…
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Culture Philip Roth’s Favorite Elegy — And His Lifelong Love Of Chamber Music
Philip Roth’s Intimate Farewell through Chamber Music On September 25, friends of the late novelist Philip Roth paid him tribute at the New York Public Library’s Celeste Bartos Forum. Roth had personally planned the ceremony over the past several years. Speakers included the biographer Judith Thurman, novelist Edna O’Brien, and political economist Bernard Avishai, author…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History Of Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour, the French singer and songwriter of Armenian origin who died on October 1 at age 94, made a career out of incarnating vulnerable minorities. Aznavour was a fragile, diminutive man with haggard, lined features, even in his thirties. His large, liquid eyes, capable of expressing a range of emotions from rapture to terror,…
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Culture Barbara Cassin: What Hannah Arendt Could Teach Israel
On May 4 of this year, Barbara Cassin, a French Jewish philologist and philosopher born in 1947, was elected to the Académie française. Of over 720 members of the French Academy since the 1600s, Cassin is only the second Jewish woman, after the government minister and Auschwitz survivor Simone Veil (1927-2017). A third academician, historian…
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Culture Neil Simon, A Yiddish-Influenced Wisecracker
In his heyday, the playwright Neil Simon, who died on August 26 at age 91, produced a series of long-running plays, some of them winners of significant awards, that tickled audiences as the height of the wisecrack genre. “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1983), “Biloxi Blues” (1985), “Broadway Bound” (1986), and “Lost in Yonkers” (1991) capped a…
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Culture Celebrating Leonard Bernstein At 100
With August 25 marking his centenary, Massachusetts-born Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) remains the 20th century’s most famous Jewish musician. His Symphony No. 1 Jeremiah and Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish), among other works, are lasting contributions to the orchestral repertoire, as memoirs by musical associates, including Jack Gottlieb and John Mauceri attest. Bernstein’s Yiddishkeit was essential to…
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