Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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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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The Schmooze Quintessential British Actor’s Jewishness Not ‘Gone With the Wind’
In Portugal in 1943, shortly before his plane was shot down during a wartime propaganda mission, the actor Leslie Howard replied smilingly when he was described as a quintessential Englishman (he even seemed British in “Gone With the Wind”): “I suppose we do not have to tell them that I began as a Hungarian.” Born…
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Culture How Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Music Survived Dictators
There are few more intense pleasures for music lovers than to see a long-underrated composer finally receiving a deserved place in the sun. Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a Russian composer of Polish-Jewish origin who died in 1996, has long flown under the radar as one of the most accomplished of modern composers. Usually lost in the shadow…
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The Schmooze ‘Tis the Season to Be Classical: Unmissable December Concerts
While Hanukkah preparations and aftermath can overshadow every other human activity in December, ‘tis also the season for classical concerts, especially although by no means exclusively, in the New York area. These can include much Yiddishkayt, despite the seeming omnipresence of Handel’s “Messiah.” Mahler-lovers will not want to miss the much-loved British conductor Sir Colin…
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