Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture A paragon of erudition and a vital poet, he captured the American gay Jewish experience
The American Jewish poet and translator Richard Howard, who died March 31 at age 92, proved that in a literary career, timing is of paramount importance. To be born less than two weeks before the 1929 stock market crash to an impoverished Jewish family in Cleveland might have seemed unlucky. Yet Howard was promptly adopted…
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Culture Does Goliath deserve his bad reputation? A new spin on an old villain
Does Goliath, the giant notorious for his biblical confrontation with David, deserve sympathy? The latest book by Jonathan Friedmann, professor of Jewish music history at the Academy for Jewish Religion California, explains why he may be getting some. “Goliath as Gentle Giant” examines the recent phenomenon of humanizing depictions in popular culture of David’s opponent….
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Culture How Madeleine Albright downplayed then came to embrace her Jewish heritage
Albright eventually came to terms with her Jewish past past, while remaining an observant Episcopalian
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Culture The surprisingly Jewish history of the Rorschach inkblot test
April 2 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychoanalyst who propounded the Rorschach inkblot test, still used as a means of evaluating mental conditions. The Rorschach test immediately attracted strong support from Jewish clinicians. These included Françoise Minkowska-Brokman, of Polish ancestry, who introduced the test in France as well…
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Culture In Venice, why the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world still matters
A new book on the Venetian Ghetto, formed by the municipal government of Venice in the early 1500s to confine Italian Jews, explores the ongoing cultural impact of this first-ever such space. Initially intended to segregate and control Jewish people, centuries later during the Second World War, over 1,000 Nazi ghettos were established across Europe…
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Culture How a Yiddish encyclopedia became a document of the Holocaust and Jewish culture
“The General Encyclopedia” (Di Algemeyne Entsiklopedye) was a Yiddish language publishing project created in Berlin, Paris, and New York from 1932 to 1966. It was begun optimistically in Berlin to celebrate the 70th birthday of the Russian-Jewish historian Simon Dubnow, who would be murdered in the street by Nazis in Latvia just over a decade…
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Culture In Ukraine, a long history of Russian crimes against Jews
Tragic events now unfolding in Ukraine echo a history of Russian human rights offenses against Jews in that country. Just over a century ago, between 1918 and 1921, tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews were murdered, tortured and raped in hundreds of pogroms by marauders, some of them Russian. Historians place the number of people…
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Culture In painting a survivor of the Holocaust, a feeling of overwhelming and indescribable privilege
“Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust,” an exhibition of paintings commissioned by Charles, Prince of Wales was previously shown in Buckingham Palace and soon may be visited at The Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland, until June 6, 2022. In the catalogue, portraits of Holocaust survivors now living in the…
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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