Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze Pious Donkeys and Ancient Jews Hit the Road
Were Jews of antiquity mere homebodies compared to adventurous Islamic and Christian travelers? In his 1932 study “Caravan Cities”, historian Michael Ivanovitch Rostovtzeff suggested as much, stating that ancient Jews were “of a national character insufficiently mobile or versatile.” However, “Jewish Travel in Antiquity”, a study out in October from Mohr Siebeck Verlag, scotches this…
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Culture ‘Dreyfus’ of the Classical Music World
The sudden proliferation of Jewish composers in the mid-19th century was unprecedented in the history of classical music. Until then, Jews had been limited to the role of virtuoso performers, but that all changed when Germany’s two most famous composers were of Jewish origin. These two were Felix Mendelssohn, whose most prominent public manifestation was…
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The Schmooze A Humanist as Good as Capa
The Hungarian Jewish photographer Eva Besnyö (1910-2003) deserves an honored place beside her more widely celebrated compatriots Robert Capa and André Kertész. A Berlin exhibit honoring her, Eva Besnyö: Budapest – Berlin – Amsterdam, closed on February 27, but a dazzling catalog with texts in German and English was published in March by Hirmer Verlag….
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The Schmooze Why Marco Koskas Abandoned France
Author of several novels, the French Jewish author Marco Koskas, born in Tunisia in 1951, has recently published what he calls a “récit” or narrative account. “My Paternal Heart: Diary from August 2010 to August 2011” appeared from Les éditions Fayard in January , a first-person story in journal form about his 16-year-old son embracing…
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The Schmooze The Arty Semite Guide to Springtime Concerts
Approaching springtime should make New York-area music lovers in search of Yiddishkeit look beyond the obvious choice of Felix Mendelssohn, famed composer of the “Spring Song.” On March 20 at The Austrian Cultural Forum, ardent modernist songs by Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander von Zemlinsky will be performed by mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson and soprano Katharine Dain…
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The Schmooze Laughter and Horror at Dickens’s Bicentenary
Dickens 2012, the official UK website celebrating English novelist Charles Dickens on the bicentenary year of his birth, is mostly silent on the author’s anti-Semitism, most famously expressed in the notorious characters of Fagin in “Oliver Twist.” A Jewish villain, albeit a comic one, Fagin is still highly offensive to many, as PBS discovered in…
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The Schmooze Lustiger Counts Prostitute as ‘Righteous’
In dire times, some people are given the opportunity to display what is best in human nature. Such is the message of a new book by Arno Lustiger, author of “Stalin and the Jews” and many other historical works including “Rescue-Resistance: Europe’s Rescuers of Jews in the Nazi Era” which was published by Wallstein Verlag…
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Culture Time to Come Clean on Shoah Role
It can take 70 years for some French trains to run on time. And even then, you can’t rely on them. In February, French author Alain Lipietz reacted with scorn to the announcement that the SNCF, the French national railroad, intends to open its archives for the period of 1939–1945. He declared that the SNCF…
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