Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze High Hopes for High Israeli Voices
In London last June, an Israeli voice of world-class beauty rang out in the storied Wigmore Hall, part a concert of Italian Baroque, Ladino, Hebrew and cantorial music. 34-year-old countertenor Yaniv d’Or, who studied at Jerusalem’s Rubin Academy and the UK’s Guildhall School of Music, “enthralled” one English critic with his “smooth toned, powerfully resilient”…
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The Schmooze Thinking and Kvelling at Advanced Study Institute
Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study has long been a center of intellectual Yiddishkeit. In 1930, American Jewish educator Abraham Flexner convinced department store magnate Louis Bamberger to donate five million dollars to build the Institute, and it soon acquired the mission of saving Europe’s Jewish thinkers from the Nazi menace. Flexner invited Albert Einstein…
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The Schmooze The Arty Semite Guide to May Classical Concerts
As summertime slowly approaches, concerts of music both minimal and maximal will enchant Manhattanites in search of aural Yiddishkeit. On April 29 at the Walter Reade Theater, flutist Claire Chase will perform Steve Reich’s “Vermont Counterpoint” in its version for flute and tape; the alternate version, for eleven flutes, would doubtless exceed even the gifted…
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The Schmooze An Artist Struck With Admiration for Herzl
The German Jewish graphic artist Hermann Struck (1876-1944), who emigrated to the Holy Land in 1922, was famed for the multiple portraits which he created of Theodor Herzl. But he was more than just a pioneering artist before Israel’s statehood was declared. A small, well-chosen exhibit, Hermann Struck in Galilee, was on view at the…
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The Schmooze Architects and Artists Building the Jewish State
The half-century before the declaration of Israel’s statehood was a time of wild artistic ferment. Some of the nuances of the feverish creativity in the realm of architecture are described by two studies from Ashgate Publishing, “Constructing a Sense of Place: Architecture and the Zionist Discourse” edited by Haim Yacobi and “Architecture and Utopia. The…
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Culture Dannie Abse Brings Jewish Twist to Wales
Though “What will survive of us is love” comes from his captious contemporary, Philip Larkin, the line might stand for the life and career of Welsh-Jewish poet Dannie Abse. Having turned 88 last September, Abse was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE, in the 2012 New Year Honours, “for services…
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The Schmooze A Jewish Philosopher’s Love, Loss and Solace
The German Jewish philosopher Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), not to be confused with the Swiss Jewish composer Ernest Bloch, is still remembered for such landmark books as “The Spirit of Utopia,” “The Principle of Hope,” and “The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays.” As a philosopher, Bloch was influenced by Karl Marx and G….
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The Schmooze Grumpy Frenchmen in the Holy Land
“Why do the wrong people travel when the right people stay back home?,” asked a Noël Coward song, but a century before such concerns, “le tout Paris” was eagerly visiting Jerusalem and reporting on what they had seen. “Exploring Palestine: 19th century French Travelers in the Holy Land”, published on September 29, 2011 by Les…
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