Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture Was Alan Gershwin Really George Gershwin’s Son?
Brooklyn-born Albert Schneider, who called himself Alan C. Gershwin, maintained the claim that he was an illegitimate son of the American Jewish songwriter George Gershwin (1898-1937) for decades until his death on February 27 at age 91. He never relented, despite the Gershwin family’s prompt denial of any such connection. Schneider/Gershwin, as he shall be…
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Culture The Mensch Behind ‘Batman’ Dies At 104
The Hollywood producer Benjamin Melniker, who died on February 26 at the age of 104, bought the screen rights to the DC Comics character Batman in 1979 and is credited as co-executive producer on every Batman film from Tim Burton’s 1989 effort to Batman Ninja (2018). His career proves that no comic book villains could…
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Art How Avram Finkelstein Changed The Way We Think About AIDS — With One Pink Triangle
In the 1980’s the American Jewish artist and writer Avram Finkelstein was a co-creator of the iconic AIDS crisis protest poster which features a pink triangle with the words “Silence=Death.” How this influential graphic image was designed is recalled in Finkelstein’s new memoir, “After Silence: A History of AIDS Through Its Images” (University of California…
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Film & TV Why The Spielberg-Kushner ‘West Side Story’ Might Turn Out Okay
Few American musicals have won more sustained audience devotion than “West Side Story,” the 1957 brainchild of an all-Jewish creative team. Playwright Arthur Laurents, choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, collaborated, despite sustained tensions, to produce a musical that has been staged around the world for six decades and inspired an…
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Culture Hollywood’s Oldest Working Jewish Actress Dies At 105
Old Jewish character actors never die, they just stop going on casting calls. Charles Lane (born Charles Levison; 1905–2007) a mainstay in small roles in Frank Capra films and on the TV series “I Love Lucy,” kvetched during his hundredth birthday celebration that his performing career had recently slowed down. Connie Sawyer, who died on…
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Culture Mathilde Krim Was The Oskar Schindler Of The War Against AIDS
Oskar Schindler is celebrated for saving the lives of 1,200 imperiled people, so how can one begin to describe the achievement of Mathilde Krim, who by most accounts helped to save the lives of millions? The dauntless advocate of AIDS research, prevention, and treatment who died on January 15 at age 91, was motivated by…
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Culture Remembering Chicago’s Milt Rosenberg — And How He Revived The Art Of Conversation
In recalling Milt Rosenberg, the veteran Chicago radio host who died on January 9 at age 92, the first memory is of a soothing light baritone voice that might have been expected from a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Chicago, where he served as director of the doctoral program in social and…
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Culture How Aharon Appelfeld Found His Home In Hebrew
In Philip Roth’s novel “Operation Shylock”, a fictional Israeli writer named Aharon Appelfeld offers warnings about an identity thief targeting the narrator. In real life, Appelfeld, who died on January 4 at age 85, cautioned readers about what losing Jewish cultural identity might lead to. With a laconic, unelaborate style echoing his soft-spoken manner in…
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