Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Gil Ben Aych Breathes Life into France’s Sephardi Experience
On February 24, L’École des loisirs publishing group reprinted two minor classics of French Jewish writing for young readers: “The Hand-Towel for Your Feet” (L’Essuie-mains des pieds) and “Granny’s Trip” (Le voyage de Mémé). Originally published in 1981 and 1982, respectively, by French author, philosophy teacher, and wine merchant Gil Ben Aych, both books charmingly…
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The Schmooze Dream a Little Dream of Tobie Nathan
The Cairo-born French Jewish ethnopsychiatrist Tobie Nathan author of a 2010 novel, “Who Killed Arlozoroff?” from Les Éditions Grasset about the 1933 murder of left-wing Israeli political leader Haim Arlosoroff, has also focused on psychiatry’s ultimate father figure, Sigmund Freud. In a 2006 novel from Les Éditions Perrin, “My Patient Sigmund Freud, Nathan offers a…
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The Schmooze French Feminist Cathy Bernheim Investigates a Hypnotic Ancestor
An interest in family roots can appear without warning. A new biography, “Hippolyte Bernheim: a Destiny Under Hypnosis” (“Hippolyte Bernheim, un destin sous hypnose”), appeared in March from Les éditions Hugo & Cie, recounting the life of a French Jewish neurologist and pioneer of hypnotic therapy. Its author is French novelist and essayist Cathy Bernheim,…
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The Schmooze Arnold Schoenberg and the American Dream
Coming to America is normally shorthand for the opening of opportunity: apparently not for Arnold Schoenberg. Commentators on modern music have long undervalued the Vienna-born composer Arnold Schoenberg’s years in America, from 1934 until his death in 1951. Admittedly, there were some disappointments, such as when the Guggenheim Foundation notoriously refused to grant Schoenberg a…
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The Schmooze Lydia Flem: Words Beyond Suffering’s Reach
The Belgian Jewish author Lydia Flem explored her family’s heritage in 2004’s “How I Cleared Out My Parents’ House” (Comment j’ai vidé la maison de mes parents) from Les éditions du Seuil. Holocaust survivors, Flem’s parents never spoke of their wartime sufferings. Flem, spared the horror of her family’s history, writes that her generation “had…
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Culture Henri Raczymow Takes Readers on Journeys Imbued With Jewish History
When Aby Wieviorka, the eminent Paris-based Yiddish translator, sought a collaborator for French versions of Mendele Moykher Sforim’s 1888 novella “Fishke der Krumer” (“Fishke the Lame”) and Oyzer Warshavsky’s 1920 novel “Shmuglars” (“Smugglers”), he turned to an ideal colleague. As French readers have long noted, Henri Raczymow combines literary refinement with a deep emotional understanding…
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The Schmooze Roberto Saviano, Scourge of the Mafia and Reader of I. B. Singer
To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, when a man knows he is to die shortly, “it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” The young Italian Jewish journalist Roberto Saviano, under threat of imminent death from angered mafiosi after his 2006 “Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organized Crime System”, has decided to concentrate on…
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The Schmooze CDs to Cool Off the Dog Days of Summer
Nothing distracts more from brutal estival heat than revitalizing musical discoveries with a refreshing dose of Yiddishkeit on CD. Turin-born Italian Jewish composer Leone Sinigaglia was admired by Fritz Kreisler and Arturo Toscanini, but fell into obscurity after dying at age 75 in 1944, just as he was being arrested in hospital by Nazis. A…
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