Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture Does focusing on Van Morrison’s alleged antisemitism ignore a much bigger problem?
When does hypersensitivity about potential antisemitic slights promote or unnecessarily highlight Jew-hating tropes? If a septuagenarian Irish pop singer wrote a song claiming that “They are all rich” and “They are all stingy,” what sensible Jewish listeners would raise their hands and admit that the tune must be about Jews because, over the years, imbeciles…
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Culture Remembering Anne Douglas, a woman of charity and a late convert to Judaism
Anne Buydens Douglas, who died April 29 at age 102, collaborated with her husband Kirk Douglas in extraordinarily generous philanthropic ventures. The couple, both of whom reached their centenary, showed that advanced age can be accompanied by heightened humanistic values. Born Hannelore Marx in Hanover, Germany, to a family of wealthy industrialists, she acquired business…
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Culture Why Jews are still crazy about mahjong
From the 1920s until today, mahjong has captured the imagination of American Jewish players like few other games. Annelise Heinz, who teaches at the University of Oregon, is the author of “Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture.” Recently, I spoke with Heinz about what mahjong has meant to Jewish communities….
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Culture Blacks and Jews — united as subjects of hate
The British historian Tudor Parfitt, author of “Black Jews in Africa and the Americas,” and “The Jews of Ethiopia,” has long investigated interactions among Jewish communities around the world. His latest book, “Hybrid Hate: Conflations of Antisemitism & Anti-Black Racism from the Renaissance to the Third Reich” examines the longstanding coexistence of antisemitism and anti-Black…
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Culture Remembering Julian Koenig, the Jewish Ad Man Who Created Beetle-Mania
Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published in the Forward on June 14, 2014.. The renowned advertising copywriter Julian Koenig, who died at age 93 on June 12, 2014, baffled the 1960s hucksters on the hit TV series “Mad Men.” In the show’s first season, the fictional admen are puzzled by Koenig’s…
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Culture Walter Mondale’s keen understanding of Jewish history
Walter Mondale, who died April 19 at age 93, was celebrated for his contributions to The Camp David Accords, political agreements signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1978. At the time, Mondale, previously a longtime senator from Minnesota, was serving as US vice president during the presidency of…
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Culture How an antisemite like Baudelaire influenced generations of Jewish writers
According to researcher Brett Bowles, Charles Baudelaire, who was born 200 years ago April 9, 1821, was a raging antisemite. In an article from 2000, Bowles noted that in “My Heart Laid Bare” (Mon cœur mis à nu), a posthumously published book of fragmentary observations, the author of the collection “The Flowers of Evil” declared:…
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Culture Just how Jewish were ‘The Arabian Nights?’
How many of the “1001 Nights” were Jewish ones? Last month marked the bicentenary of the birth of Richard F. Burton, the Victorian translator of “The Arabian Nights,” or “1001 Nights,” the medieval compendium of tales in Arabic about the storyteller Scheherazade, Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sindbad. The stories date back over centuries across a…
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