Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture That Time Tom Wolfe Lampooned Leonard Bernstein And ‘Radical Chic’
The satiric novelist and essayist Tom Wolfe died on May 14 at age 88 in the midst of world-wide celebrations for the centenary of Leonard Bernstein. This timing might have appealed to Wolfe’s well-developed sense of irony, since he authored “Radical Chic,” a savage takedown of Bernstein first published in June 1970 by New York…
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Culture Why Do We Keep Honoring This Unrepentant Anti-Semite?
A new book from St. Martin’s Press by Susan Ronald, biographer of Adolf Hitler’s art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, details how Florence Gould (1895-1983 a society hostess born in America of French parents, was an egregious collaborator during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. Yet today, New Yorkers flock to the Florence Gould Hall at the French…
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Culture Why Should We Care About The Anti-Semitic Ravings Of Louis-Ferdinand Céline?
With anti-Semitic violence on the rise in France, now might not be the most opportune time to announce a reprint of some of the most violent Jew-hating writings of the 20th century. Yet in December 2017, les éditions Gallimard in Paris declared that this May, three anti-Semitic tracts written by the author Louis-Ferdinand Céline in…
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Culture Was Alan Gershwin Really George Gershwin’s Son?
Brooklyn-born Albert Schneider, who called himself Alan C. Gershwin, maintained the claim that he was an illegitimate son of the American Jewish songwriter George Gershwin (1898-1937) for decades until his death on February 27 at age 91. He never relented, despite the Gershwin family’s prompt denial of any such connection. Schneider/Gershwin, as he shall be…
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Culture The Mensch Behind ‘Batman’ Dies At 104
The Hollywood producer Benjamin Melniker, who died on February 26 at the age of 104, bought the screen rights to the DC Comics character Batman in 1979 and is credited as co-executive producer on every Batman film from Tim Burton’s 1989 effort to Batman Ninja (2018). His career proves that no comic book villains could…
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Art How Avram Finkelstein Changed The Way We Think About AIDS — With One Pink Triangle
In the 1980’s the American Jewish artist and writer Avram Finkelstein was a co-creator of the iconic AIDS crisis protest poster which features a pink triangle with the words “Silence=Death.” How this influential graphic image was designed is recalled in Finkelstein’s new memoir, “After Silence: A History of AIDS Through Its Images” (University of California…
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Film & TV Why The Spielberg-Kushner ‘West Side Story’ Might Turn Out Okay
Few American musicals have won more sustained audience devotion than “West Side Story,” the 1957 brainchild of an all-Jewish creative team. Playwright Arthur Laurents, choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, collaborated, despite sustained tensions, to produce a musical that has been staged around the world for six decades and inspired an…
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Culture Hollywood’s Oldest Working Jewish Actress Dies At 105
Old Jewish character actors never die, they just stop going on casting calls. Charles Lane (born Charles Levison; 1905–2007) a mainstay in small roles in Frank Capra films and on the TV series “I Love Lucy,” kvetched during his hundredth birthday celebration that his performing career had recently slowed down. Connie Sawyer, who died on…
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