Benjamin Ivry is a frequent Forward contributor.
Benjamin Ivry
By Benjamin Ivry
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The Schmooze An ‘Honorary Jewish’ Novelist’s Homage
At 72, Italian novelist and Germanist Claudio Magris has many achievements, including critical writings on Kafka and Joseph Roth. One of his most lastingly admired books is a 1991 novel, “Un altro mare” (Another Sea), of which the French translation was reprinted in September from Folio/Gallimard. An ardently poetic, yet also skillfully calibrated fictional tribute…
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The Schmooze Musical Politics in Old San Francisco
Classical music lovers have long marveled at the richness of talent which emerged from the San Francisco area, from soloists Isaac Stern and Leon Fleisher to the Menuhin family. A well-researched new study out from University of California Press in October, “Music and Politics in San Francisco: From the 1906 Quake to the Second World…
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The Schmooze From Reagan to Gibson: A Star’s Life and Loves
Admirers of the 79-year-old filmstar Piper Laurie, especially her three Oscar-nominated performances in “The Hustler” (1961), “Carrie” (1976) and “Children of a Lesser God” (1986), may not know about the abiding importance of Yiddishkeit to her achievements. Laurie, born Rosetta Jacobs in Detroit in 1932, makes this aspect of her life and art evident in…
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Culture Muslims Who Helped Save French Jews
Benjamin Stora, an Algerian-born writer and political activist who turned 61 in December, has for years combined history and self-history as a North African Jew. Most recently he has become embroiled in a controversy about the role that Muslims may have played in saving French Jews during the Holocaust. As adviser for the acclaimed French…
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The Schmooze Pioneering Social Worker Alice Salomon
Alice Salomon, born in 1872 in Berlin to an assimilated Jewish family, was one of the great pioneers of modern social work, called during her lifetime “The Jane Addams of Germany,” referring to the saintly American founder of Chicago’s Hull House. After writing a turn-of-the-century doctoral dissertation on why women are paid lower salaries than…
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The Schmooze Getting to Know Cartoonist Georges Wolinski
The French Jewish cartoonist Georges Wolinski has long entertained his compatriots with drawings spoofing romance and sexuality, as well as making serious points about politics and society. In collections such as “Everything is Politics” (Tout est politique) from Les editions Temps actuels and “The Right-Wing Plan” (Le Programme de la droite) Wolinski offers merciless caricatures…
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The Schmooze Paul Ehrlich, a ‘Markedly Jewish’ Humanitarian
Fans of golden age Hollywood biopics will recall the 1940 classic “Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet,” available from Warner Brothers DVDs, a collaboration between the Jewish director William Dieterle, screenwriter Norman Burnstine, and star Edward G. Robinson, (born Emanuel Goldenberg of Romanian-Jewish origin). Ehrlich’s widow Hedwig Pinkus, by then a near-destitute refugee, was a paid consultant….
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The Schmooze Israeli Fashionistas in Under 500 Years
Internationally recognized stars of Israeli clothing design such as Ronen Chen, Kedem Sasson, Yigal Azrouel, and Ziv Gil Kazenstein have won applause on the runways of the world’s fashion capitals. Yet decades ago, during the ferment and danger of Israel’s early days as a nation, what the pioneering generation should wear might have seemed a…
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