Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Isaac Stern Called him ‘Petunia’
The pianist Eugene Istomin, born in New York in 1925 to a Russian Jewish mother and Russian Orthodox father, is mostly remembered as a stellar chamber musician. Istomin, who died in 2003, anchored the celebrated Istomin-Stern-Rose trio (alongside superstar violinist Isaac Stern and cellist Leonard Rose) which is still remembered thanks to superb DVDs from…
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The Schmooze Avigdor Arikha: An Artist ‘Fervent in Adhesion’ to His Subjects
In April, 2010, when the Israeli artist Avigdor Arikha (born Dlugacz in Romania) died at age 81, he was praised for his sensitive figurative art, as well as his heroic life story. In 1941, after Arikha’s family was deported to Romanian-run concentration camps, his drawings of deportation scenes, shown to International Red Cross representatives, won…
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The Schmooze When Zayda Was Also a Great Polish Pianist
After 2009’s biography Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist by Allan Evans from Indiana University Press, and CD reprints on such labels as Arbiter Records; Naxos USA; and Philips Classics, new attention is being paid to the splendid Polish Jewish pianist Friedman. A warmly affectionate biographical memoir, “Ignaz Friedman” by Nina Walder, the pianist’s granddaughter, appeared…
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Culture Buildings That Jump Up And Bite
Modern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are notorious for having fixed, even tyrannical, ideas of how people should experience the buildings they designed — sometimes seemingly for maximum discomfort. Breaking with this precedent, architect Morris Lapidus, born in Odessa to an Orthodox Jewish family in 1902, designed buildings to make people…
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The Schmooze How Jewish is ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying?’
In Frank Loesser’s beloved 1961 musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”, a new production of which starring Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe opens at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre on March 27 (previews start February 26), J. Pierrepont Finch (Radcliffe) is portrayed as an inexorably rising businessman. His name alludes to the turn-of-the-century capitalist…
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The Schmooze Sounds of Chutzpah on CD for February
Sometimes music achievement is directly associated with a degree of chutzpah. Generations have been moved by the stirring 1881 setting for cello and orchestra of “Kol Nidre” by Max Bruch, especially as performed with granitic Old Testament authority by Pablo Casals on Emi Classics. Only an audacious composer would dare to rival Bruch’s achievement, as…
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Culture Françoise Giroud, Her Triumphant Career and Personal Torments
To many, Françoise Giroud, born Lea France Gourdji in September 1916 to Turkish-Jewish parents, was an example of a woman who handled power with uncommon grace. Giroud, who died in January 2003 at age 86, served as France’s minister of culture. In 1953, she co-founded the influential political weekly L’Express to advance the agenda of…
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The Schmooze Mon Semblable, Mon Père: Likenesses Found on the Lindon Tree
The French Jewish publisher Jérôme Lindon, who died in 2001 at age 75, introduced such authors as his friend Samuel Beckett and the 1950s Nouveau Roman (new novel) school, including Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon through his Les Éditions de Minuit. Growing up as Lindon’s son is the subject of an elegant new memoir by…
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