Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
-
The Schmooze A Mélange of Musical May Days
As May rolls around for Manhattan music lovers, ‘tis the season for appreciating the works of George Kleinsinger, whose much-loved orchestral work “Tubby the Tuba” will be performed on April 30 in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater by The Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Symphonic Band. Kleinsinger wrote “Tubby” in 1941, about the possibly…
-
Culture Novel Stance for a Serial Biographer
The Book of Job has inspired English-language masterworks from William Blake’s poetry to Muriel Spark’s novels “The Comforters” and “The Only Problem,” but France — especially Bible-resistant, post-Revolutionary and secular France — has lagged behind in such inspiration. Until now, that is. Pierre Assouline, a French-Jewish biographer, novelist and journalist born in Casablanca, Morocco, in…
-
The Schmooze Pink Triangles: Gays, Jews and Gay Jews
Despite such pioneering exhibits as 2003’s “Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: 1933-1945” at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, official commemorations of the Nazi mistreatment of gay men and women pose still-evolving problems, as a brilliantly researched study, “Pink Triangle: Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals and its Remembrance,” (Triangle rose. La persécution nazie des homosexuels et…
-
The Schmooze Overlooking Henry Mayhew’s ‘Street-Jews’ in Dickensian London
The vivid scenes of a bustling and brutally poor metropolis at the heart of Empire make Henry Mayhew’s masterpiece “London Labour and the London Poor,” first published in 1851 compelling reading. With or without Jews. The Victorian social researcher originally published his work in three volumes and augmented it to four volumes in 1861 so…
-
Culture J’Accepte
April 8 marks the 100th birthday of French-language aphorist Emil Cioran, and the celebrations in Paris include the publication of ‘Cioran: Mystical Short Prayers’ a philosophical appreciation by Stéphane Barsacq from Les Éditions du Seuil. A colloquium, ‘Cioran: Jubilatory Pessimism’ was held at this year’s Paris Book Fair. And on April 7, Les editions CNRS…
-
The Schmooze Walter Benjamin, Book Collector Redivivus
Enthused readers of the German Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin are impatiently awaiting the announced May 9 publication date of a landmark translation of Benjamin’s “Early Writings” from Harvard University Press. Until then, readers afflicted with Benjamania can delight in a catalog published by the Kunstmuseum Solingen in Germany, “Stellar Immortality” (Die Unsterblichkeit der Sterne, to…
-
The Schmooze Adah Isaacs Menken: a Civil War-era Sexpot Remembered
The 19th century New Orleans-born entertainer and sex symbol Adah Isaacs Menken is still shivering timbers long after her premature death in 1868. Back in 2003, Renée M. Sentilles, a history professor at Case Western Reserve University, published an enjoyable scholarly analysis with Cambridge University Press, “Performing Menken: Adah Isaacs Menken and the Birth of…
-
Culture A Jew by Choice: Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011
Whereas Judaism, unlike some other religions, discourages conversions, there has always been a certain amount of giddy excitement when a star, from Marilyn Monroe to Sammy Davis Jr., converts to the Jewish faith. Few, if any, such conversions, however, made the lasting impact of the ceremony at Hollywood’s Temple Israel on March 27, 1959, at…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Expelled Oberlin Chabad rabbi says he ‘made a mistake’ with explicit social media chats
- 2
Culture Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary on the manosphere takes a detour into antisemitism
- 3
Fast Forward Illinois primary pits Jewish candidate with deep Israel ties against AIPAC spending
- 4
Opinion Trump has forced an impossible choice on American synagogues amid antisemitic attacks
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Through missile strikes and sleepless nights, the persistent hope of being an Iranian Jew in Israel
-
News Meet the TikToker trying to revive Judeo-Arabic, the nearly extinct language Jews once spoke across the Arab world
-
Fast Forward ‘Buffer zones’ come to California, as a lawmaker proposes limiting protests near houses of worship
-
Fast Forward The first and second Jewish mayors of Providence, Rhode Island, just had a shared bar mitzvah
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
