Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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Culture How Pianist Irving Fields Redefined Jewish Music
Irving Fields, the songwriter and pianist who died on August 20 at age 101, revealed talent that transcended the question of what is authentic Jewish music. Born Yitzhak Schwartz in New York to parents from Minsk and Pinsk, he was raised in Coney Island and Bensonhurst. An amateur choir singer, his father got him involved…
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Culture How Steven Hill, ‘Law & Order’ Actor, Chose Orthodox Faith Over Stardom
Steven Hill, an actor who died on August 23 at age 94, showed how the solution for existential unease may be found in Jewish ritual rather than in a life devoted to performance. Born Solomon Krakovsky in Seattle, Hill won fame from 1990 to 2000 in the role of Manhattan District Attorney Adam Schiff on…
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Culture Arthur Hiller Directed ‘Love Story’ and ‘The In-Laws’ and Never Lost His Yiddishkeit
Best remembered for his hit film “Love Story,” (1970), the Canadian Jewish director Arthur Hiller’s highest achievement may have been remaining a mensch during the vertiginous ups and downs of a long Hollywood career. Hiller, who died on August 17 at age 92, attributed his trademark gentle calm to his parents, Rose Garfin and Harry…
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Culture Remembering Fyvush Finkel — a Character Actor of Uncommon Character
The Forward played an integral role in the start of the long and glorious performing career of the multitalented Fyvush Finkel, who died on August 14 at age 93. He was born Philip Finkel in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn to a mother from Minsk and a father from Warsaw. Around 1931, when Philip was…
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Culture How Poet Marianne Moore Was Inspired By the Jews
American modernist poets, including T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams, were notorious for differing degrees of anti-Semitism, but their colleague Marianne Moore (1887–1972) was uniquely inspired by Jewish tradition and lore. Linda Leavell edited a recently published edition of Marianne Moore’s landmark first poetry collection, “Observations” (1924). She has also published…
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Culture Remembering Zelda Fichandler, ‘Great Founding Rabbi’ of Regional Theater
The American Jewish stage producer, director and educator Zelda Fichandler, who died on July 29 at age 91, was more than just the cofounder of Washington D. C.’s much-lauded Arena Stage and longtime inspiring mainstay at the graduate school of acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She was, as Todd London’s…
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Culture Remembering Seymour Papert: Revolutionary Socialist and Father of A.I.
The South African Jewish computer scientist and educator Seymour Papert, who died on July 31 at age 88, was a long-time fixture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He pioneered artificial intelligence and co-invented the Logo programming language. Yet his work as a social reformer, rather than with machines per se, was a primordial obsession….
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Culture Bernie Krause Played for Pete Seeger and Inspired an Animal Orchestra
Born in Detroit in 1938, for the past quarter-century Bernie Krause has traveled the world, capturing natural sounds of creatures and environments large and small. Since briefly replacing Pete Seeger in the folk-singing group “The Weavers” in 1963, Krause has gone on to contribute synthesizer performances to many feature films, including “Apocalypse Now.” His company,…
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