Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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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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Music The Secret Jewish History Of Aretha Franklin
To understand the close ties between the singer Aretha Franklin, who has died at the age of 76, and Jewish musicians, writers, and performers, one need not have seen the 1982 TV special starring Rodney Dangerfield (born Jacob Cohen) in which the comedian who famously got no respect feigns singing backup on Franklin’s 1967 recording…
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Culture She Captured The Soul Of Harvey Weinstein — And Bernie Madoff And Anthony Weiner
Since the 1980s, the Brooklyn-born courtroom artist Jane Rosenberg has won attention for her trial portraits of Bernard Madoff, Woody Allen, Leona Helmsley, Anthony Weiner and others, broadcast over all major TV networks. Most recently, her sketches from the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein in downtown Manhattan for rape and other crimes went viral for their…
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Film & TV Why Claude Lanzmann Still Matters
Claude Lanzmann, the French Jewish journalist, author, and filmmaker who died on July 5 at age 92, was not a believer in the proverb “live and let live.” As he explained in his memoir “The Patagonian Hare,” his celebrated film “Shoah” (1985) required aggressively pursuing Nazi murderers to demand explanations of their crimes. Fortunately, Lanzmann…
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Culture Remembering Max Fuchs — A Cantor Of Heroism And Defiance
Mordechai (Max) Fuchs, who died on July 3 at age 96, was a survivor of a time when heard Jewish melodies were sweet, but those unheard were sweeter. An amateur cantor, he participated as a rifleman in the Normandy Invasion on D-Day, landing on Omaha Beach, where he was hit by shrapnel. Born in Rzeszów,…
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Culture Sci-Fi Visionary Harlan Ellison Reveled In His Jewishness
Harlan Ellison, the American Jewish author of speculative fiction who died on June 27 at age 84, proved that early struggles with anti-Semitism could provide literary, as well as moral, inspiration. Ellison’s dystopian science fiction landmarks included “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” The Deathbird,” and “Angry Candy.” Born in Cleveland, he was…
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