Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture How Alison Lurie inherited her Jewish sense of social consciousness
The writer Alison Lurie, who died on Dec. 3 at age 94, proved that an inherited Jewish sense of social consciousness can inspire a literary career. Author of the celebrated novels “The War Between the Tates” and “Foreign Affairs,” Lurie was the daughter of Harry Lurie (1892-1973), a Latvian-born sociologist and expert in Jewish social…
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Culture Why the Mona Lisa is a lot more Jewish than you might think
Art mavens have until Dec. 15 to bid on the chance to witness the annual inspection of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa outside of its display case in the Louvre Museum. Mona Lisa mania, as the Louvre calls it, has affected people, including many Jewish fans, ever since the portrait was painted around the year…
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Culture Sammy Davis Jr.’s daughter understood her father’s commitment to Judaism
Tracey Davis, the daughter of Sammy Davis Jr., who died on Nov. 2 at age 59, co-wrote two memoirs of her father, implying that as the proverb goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. From the mid-1950s onward, Hollywood stars including Carroll Baker, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor converted to Judaism, but Davis was…
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Culture So, what did Agatha Christie really think of Jews?
With “Death on the Nile,” Kenneth Branagh’s latest film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot tales due for release in December, along with a new book-length study of Poirot, who is celebrating the centenary of his creation, it’s a moment to recall just how antisemitic the early detective novels of Agatha Christie were. “The…
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Culture A pioneering artist, Nelly Kaplan used Jewishness as her form of rebellion
The French Jewish filmmaker and author Nelly Kaplan, who died on Nov. 12 of COVID-19 complications at age 89, expressed creativity with Yiddishkeit as a form of rebellion. She was born into a prosperous family who had moved to Argentina from Kiev and Odessa to flee Russian anti-Semitism. They had relocated to colonies founded by…
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Culture Playwright Israel Horovitz wrote with Jewish ethics, didn’t always practice them
The playwright Israel Horovitz, who died on Nov. 9 at age 81, proved that creating works redolent with Jewish history and identity can be a matter of adaptation. As Horovitz told The New York Times in March 1986, he grew up in a Massachusetts town with a tiny Jewish population, and felt himself ill-equipped to…
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Culture As we mourn Alex Trebek, we honor the Jewish history of ‘Jeopardy’
While we mourn longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek, who died on Nov. 8 at age 80, we also pause to honor the game show’s admirably constant quotient of Yiddishkeit. Since 1990, Billy Wisse has worked for “Jeopardy!” as writer and editorial producer, among other responsibilities. Son of Ruth R. Wisse and professor emerita of Yiddish…
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Culture The Jewish James Bond stories Sean Connery likely never knew
Sean Connery, the Scottish actor who died on October 31 at age 90, may have been unaware that his celebrated film role as James Bond could possibly have included lines about how he preferred Manischewitz kosher wine, instead of martinis, shaken and not stirred. Rabbi Raphael Zarum of the London School of Jewish Studies has…
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