Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
-
The Schmooze Celebrating Coherent Worlds in Sound: Musicologist Michał Bristiger
For a musicologist born in 1921, Michał Bristiger is going great guns. With two new books out and an evening of vocal and keyboard music in his honor on October 23 at the Warsaw Opera, Bristiger enjoys unusual cultural resonance. Born to a Polish Jewish family in the small shtetl of Jagielnica in Ukraine, Bristiger…
-
The Schmooze Stephen Sondheim’s Little Night Kvetching
Culminating over a year of 80th birthday commemorations, the Broadway lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim recently had a Manhattan theater named after him. Yet a self-annotated volume of his lyrics due out October 29 from Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, “Finishing the Hat,” still seethes with resentment. The book’s subtitle, “Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments,…
-
The Schmooze French Jews, and Zionism as ‘Crystallization’
The Moroccan-born Israeli historian Michel Abitbol is a possibly surprising source for savvy perspectives on the strained relations between Jews and France. Up until now he has produced cogent, concise works about North Africa such as “The Jews of North Africa during the Second World War” from Wayne State University Press as well as others…
-
The Schmooze Leading Lady with a Diabolique Sense of Justice
On September 30, the 25th anniversary of the death of beautiful French actress Simone Signoret, Les éditions Michel Lafon paid homage by publishing an augmented edition of an acclaimed biography by Emmanuelle Guilcher, “Signoret: a Life.” Signoret’s own two memoirs have just been reprinted by Les éditions du Seuil: “Nostalgia Isn’t What it Used to…
-
The Schmooze Francis Veber: Laughter from Pain
The veteran French comedy filmmaker Francis Veber, whose “Le Dîner de cons” was recently remade in Hollywood as “Dinner for Schmucks,” is a master of spoofing painful social anxiety and feelings of exclusion. His new memoir from Les éditions Robert Laffont, “Let This be our Secret,” addresses how Veber’s Jewish roots influenced his comedic skills….
-
Books Misreading Claude Lévi-Strauss the Man
After the well-deserved hosannas of praise for the centenary, and subsequent dignified mourning for the demise, of the great French Jewish anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, a backlash seemed inevitable. On October 7, “Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory,” by Patrick Wilcken, presented as the “definitive account of the life, work, and legacy,” was published by…
-
Culture Separate Universes Coexisting: Chaya Czernowin’s Musical Artistry
Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin, long admired in select contemporary music circles, is now winning wider acclaim both demographically and geographically for her ardent, finely honed works. Czernowin’s chamber music in particular has won kudos, as a flurry of upcoming international performances by diverse hands proves. Over the next six months, Czernowin’s work will be performed…
-
The Schmooze Lenin, Stalin, and Jewish Musicians
On October 12, Paris’s Cité de la Musique opened a new exhibit, “Lenin, Stalin, and Music” which includes much fascinating material about the fate, and often the plight, of Russian Jewish musicians. With the benefit of hindsight it’s difficult to see why any Jews stayed in Soviet Russia. However, a brilliantly concise and well-illustrated exhibition…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News No Jews allowed: White supremacists are building a segregated community in Arkansas, but is it legal?
- 2
Opinion Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go
- 3
News What a Mayor Mamdani would mean for New York Jews
- 4
Fast Forward Mamdani tells Colbert — and a national audience — why NYC Jews shouldn’t fear him as mayor
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Dr. Ruth taught me everything I know — because she was my mom
-
Fast Forward Pro-Israel Jewish Democrats say Zohran Mamdani’s Israel stances are cause for concern, but not panic
-
Fast Forward Report: Unilever cuts funding for Ben & Jerry’s foundation as it audits giving to progressive and pro-Palestinian causes
-
Yiddish World Venice’s international arts festival gets unexpected taste of Yiddish
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
