Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Roxy of Radio City
Cole Porter’s 1930s song hit “You’re the Top” declares: “You’re romance, / You’re the steppes of Russia, / You’re the pants on a Roxy usher.” The aforementioned pants owed their existence to Samuel Lionel Rothafel (1882-1936), known as “Roxy,” an entrepreneur, theatre builder and radio personality, honored by “American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the…
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The Schmooze Martin Buber’s Biblical Translation
The Vienna-born Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) is best remembered by English readers for such texts as “Tales of the Hasidim,” “Between Man and Man,” and “I and Thou.” Yet German readers also relish Buber’s skill as a translator, notably in his mighty version of the Bible, in collaboration with the German Jewish theologian and…
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Culture Confronting Father’s Mountain of Exaggerations
Born in Lyon, France, in 1919, the legendary mountaineer Maurice Herzog was the leader of a 1950 expedition that was the first to conquer Annapurna, a peak that is part of the Himalayas in north central Nepal. Returning with frostbite that necessitated the amputation of his fingers and toes, Herzog wrote “Annapurna: First Conquest of…
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The Schmooze Imre Kertész And The Healing Power of Irony
Just over a decade ago, Imre Kertész, the Hungarian Jewish author of “Fiasco”; “The Union Jack”; and other works, was going through an unusually tough time. Parkinson’s disease, which he is still battling, had begun to hamper his writing and growing anti-Semitism in his native land made him decide to move permanently from Budapest to…
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Culture Naomi Replansky’s Career Began in a Factory
In a storage area of Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, there is a striking portrait known to only a few art lovers. It’s the work of Joseph Solman (1909–2008), the Vitebsk-born American Jewish artist whose studio was located for decades over the former site of New York City’s 2nd Avenue Deli. Painted in…
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The Schmooze The Jewish Actor Who Would Not Be Intimidated
The Austrian Jewish actor Fritz Kortner (1892-1970) is still a household name among German-speaking theater lovers, due to CD reissues of his readings, paperback reprints of his memoirs, and biographical tributes. Such was not always the case, as we learn from a fascinating essay, “Fritz Kortner on the Postwar Stage: The Jewish Actor as a…
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The Schmooze A Maccabee Among Translators
The great poet Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934) also produced translations that helped re-energize Modern Hebrew. Bialik’s renditions of Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 drama “Wilhelm Tell” and Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” are examples, as detailed in “The Russian Jewish Diaspora and European Culture, 1917-1937.” Yet Bialik’s “Quixote” was unfaithful to the original, according to an essay by Marianna…
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The Schmooze A Guide To The Fall Classical Music Season
As this fall’s concert season kicks off, Manhattanites in search of classical performances with a dollop of Yiddishkeit will have a delightful array of choices, starting with the genial ghost of beloved Austrian Jewish violinist Fritz Kreisler, which presides over the New York Philharmonic’s Opening Gala. On September 27 at Avery Fisher Hall, Itzhak Perlman…
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