Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Rambam Beats Hip-Hop!
It might seem as though the stand off between medieval Jewish philosophy and contemporary hip hop culture had been decisively decided in favor of the latter. But not so says young African-American author Thomas Chatterton Williams. Published this past spring by The Penguin Press, Williams’s “Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books…
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The Schmooze Jazz Jews and Classical Wunderkinder
This autumn’s Manhattan concert calendar contains celebrations both of Jewish musical youth and age, as if offering alternating songs of innocence and experience. Experience comes first, from October 19 to 24, when Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola presents an 85th birthday party for Newport Jazz Festival impresario George Wein. Among the celebrants will be Jazz Jews such…
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The Schmooze Autumnal and Wingreen Sounds on CD
With the academic year underway, it is timely to pay tribute to CDs from teachers, whose artistry often outweighs that of more publicized career virtuosi. Queens-born Harriet Wingreen, longtime professor at the Manhattan School of Music and orchestral pianist with the New York Philharmonic, comes from a Lithuanian Jewish family whose name was changed from…
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The Schmooze Champion of the Jewish National Game
Chess has sometimes been termed “the Jewish National Game” due to the extraordinary number of great Jewish grandmasters. One such was Wilhelm Steinitz, who ranked as first undisputed world chess champion and who is the subject of “The Steinitz Papers: Letters and Documents of the First World Chess Champion” newly available from McFarland & Co….
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The Schmooze Home Run-Hitting Sports Psychologist
As the regular baseball season comes to a close, pressure is intensifying on those players still competing for a World Series ring. Players, coaches and agents are all taking their own steps to combat the mental challenges that this pressure causes, including visiting sports psychologists. Reports earlier this summer stated that baseball agent Scott Boras…
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The Schmooze The Furious Literary Prankster, Romain Gary
The Romain Gary French Cultural Center on Kikar Safra in West Jerusalem is named in honor of the French Jewish author, born Roman Kacew in Vilnius in 1914. His multi-faceted literary exploits have been explored in his own memoirs, in Ralph Schoolcraft’s astute 2002 study “Romain Gary: The Man Who Sold His Shadow” from University…
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The Schmooze Charlie Chaplin’s Jewish Barber
For 70 years, fans of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” now widely available on DVD, have marveled at the prescience of the comedian’s anti-Nazi satire. Filmed before America actually entered World War II, when some Hollywood movie moguls still soft-pedaled critiques of Hitler, “The Great Dictator” continues to fascinate today. Recently published by Les éditions…
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Books ?Exodus? Redux
Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel?s Founding Story By M.M. Silver Wayne State University Press, 280 pages, $29.95 Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller By Ira Nadel University of Texas Press, 376 pages, $27.95 The 1958 novel ?Exodus? by Leon Uris, and the 1960 blockbuster movie that it inspired, set to…
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