Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture Jerry Lewis, The Comic Genius Who Never Had To Remind Us He Was A Jew
Jerry Lewis, the Jewish comedian and filmmaker who died on August 20 at age 91, will be remembered for more than “Cinderfella” (1959), “The Ladies Man” (1961), “The Nutty Professor” (1962), and a handful of other funny movies. A premier Jewish clown of American cinema, his innovative understanding of the medium ensured that his ethnic…
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Culture The Secret Jewish History of Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook, the Broadway diva who died on August 8 at age 89, is best remembered for starring in the musicals “Plain and Fancy” (1955), “Candide,” (1956) and “The Music Man” (1957). The long years of cabaret singing that followed may have obscured how much Yiddishkeit was involved in the achievement of this doughty performer….
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of Sam Shepard
The playwright and actor Sam Shepard, who died on July 27 at age 73, was to all outward appearances as non-Jewish as may be imagined. Yet his writing hovered around such American Jewish creative spirits as Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan and Joseph Chaikin, among others. In such plays as the “Curse of the Starving Class”…
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Culture Remembering Jeanne Moreau — Who Wore A Yellow Star In Solidarity With Jews
The French actress Jeanne Moreau, who died at age 89 on July 31, won immortality as a screen actress of uncommon sensitivity and grace for a long list of major directors, in films such as Jacques Becker’s “Hands Off the Loot” (1954); Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” (1958) and “The Lovers” (1959); François Truffaut’s…
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Culture Remembering the Jewish Voice Behind Cindy Lou Who and Rocket J. Squirrel
The American Jewish voice actor June Foray, who died on July 26 at age 99, proved that being a mensch could be a prerequisite for creating a legacy of memorable animated cartoon characters. As she noted in her memoirs, she was born June Forer in Springfield, Massachusetts, of Lithuanian and Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. She would…
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Culture Remembering Gretel Bergmann, Holocaust Survivor And Champion High Jumper
The German Jewish athlete Gretel Bergmann, who died on July 25 at the age of 103, proved that for some Holocaust survivors, there were limits to postwar reconciliation. Barred as a Jew from participating in Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics and forced into exile, Bergmann made a new life in America, starting out as a cleaning…
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Culture In The AIDS Pandemic, William Hoffman Saw Parallels To The Holocaust
The American playwright and editor William Moses Hoffman, who died on April 29 at age 78, expressed his Judaism through dramatizations of the tragic AIDS pandemic. As Jonathan Friedman’s “Rainbow Jews: Jewish and Gay Identity in the Performing Arts” notes, “Among the first dramatists to write plays about AIDS were gay Jews.” At a time…
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Culture Shobha Nehru, A Quiet Witness To History, Dies At 108
Shobha Nehru, who died on April 25 at age 108, proved that humanistic ties to family roots never fade. Born Magdolna Friedmann in Budapest in 1908, she witnessed Hungarian anti-Semitism, which led her father to change the family name to the less Jewish-sounding Forbath. This new appellation led to a school nickname, Fori, which she…
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