Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Lewis J. Stadlen: Rekindling a Talented Jewish Character Actor
On October 2, BearManor Media issued a Kindle Edition of 2009’s “Acting Foolish,” an unjustly overlooked memoir by actor Lewis J. Stadlen. Born in Brooklyn in 1947, Stadlen famously appeared on TV’s “The Sopranos” as Dr. Ira Fried, a wittily dour specialist in erectile dysfunction. Yet Stadlen is basically a stage animal, as student of…
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Books Pen Pals Reunited: Gershom Scholem and Hannah Arendt
The friendship between the great kabbalist Gershom Scholem and the political scientist Hannah Arendt famously foundered in the 1960s after a disagreement over Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” an account, of the trial of the Nazi war criminal. Scholem reproached Arendt for a lack of “ahavath Yisrael,” to which Arendt readily concurred that she lacked “ahavath”…
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The Schmooze CDs for Your Hanukkah Stocking
Sometimes we listen to CDs for their artistry, sometimes simply to relish individual voices, and few voices are as heartening and as reaffirming about human values as the rich, exquisitely cultured speaking tones of Albert Einstein, to be heard on a reprint from British Library Publishing. In original recordings from 1930 to 1947, in English…
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Culture Sovereign or Beast?
French-Jewish philosopher Jacques Derrida, who was the dean of deconstruction and died in 2004 at age 74, still divides opinions dramatically. On October 26, Yale University Press issued in paperback David Mikics’s 2009 “Who Was Jacques Derrida?: An Intellectual Biography,” a concise study that does not fully answer the question in its title, but seeks…
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The Schmooze Nancy Spero: Majestic Art, from War Atrocities to Operetta
The married painters Nancy Spero and Leon Golub fascinated their contemporaries by interweaving political themes into expressive artworks. As an individual creator, Spero finally received her full due in Christopher Lyon’s “Nancy Spero: The Work,” a lavish book out in October from Prestel Publishing. Lyon’s introduction explains the symbolic importance to Spero of texts such…
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The Schmooze A Jewish WAC Writes Home, Exuberantly
It may seem odd to describe a collection of letters home from war-torn Europe as cheerfully high-spirited, but Mollie Weinstein Schaffer, born in Detroit in 1916, belongs to a zesty, can-do generation. Enlisting in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs), Schaffer faithfully wrote home to her family from 1943 through 1945, in letters now edited by…
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Culture A Relentless Rebellion Against Unfairness
For those who believe in a documentary film that is pitiless, sometimes harrowing, but always relentlessly veracious, December 17 is the last chance to catch the yearlong Museum of Modern Art tribute to Frederick Wiseman, who turned 80 last January. Related festivities have included this past June’s AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival, in Silver Spring,…
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Books Civil Rights and Cheap Burials: Remembering Lawyer Robert Treuhaft
Human rights lawyers who spend their lives defending unpopular clients like Vietnam War draft resisters and free speech advocates can expect mostly indirect posthumous tributes. Such is the lesson of a friendly new volume, “Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford” by Leslie Brody, an English professor at the University of Redlands, out in…
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