Ben Apfelbaum

BROADWAY AT TWILIGHT : JUST HUGE

Maxine Appel Cohen and Shirley Politzer
Maxine Appel Cohen and Shirley Politzder
Shirley Politzer
Maxine Appel Cohen
Len Mahenhoff
Maxine Appel Cohen and Barbra Streisand winning an Oscar
From the left : Maxine Apple Cohen, Shirley Politzer, Len Mahenoff, David Politzer, George Freund
The long view

It was a  lovely night at the COA (Council of the Ageing) in Saber Street Bondi Junction when  Maxine Appel Cohen and Shirley Politzer presented this joyful celebration of some of  the  the wonderful Jewish composers and singers who have contributed so much to the world of music theatre.

Maxine sang  some of the songs whilst Shirley accompanied her on the piano.  For most of the songs Maxine got the audience to  sing along with the lyrics appearing  on the screen.

It proved to be a long night as Maxine went from one great artist to another. There were a lot of names to get through, and I am sure that a lot of other artists were mentioned.

Just to mention a few of the artists who Maxine highlighted –  Irving Berlin, George and Ira  Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein iii, Lorenz Hart, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Topol , Marvin Hamlisch,, Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill,

What a rich legacy our Jewish artists have left us and continue to do so.

British writer and journalist William Norman Ewer (1885-1977) famously came up with the epigram ‘how odd of God to choose the Jews’.

It may well be odd. Whatever… But it sure seems that God nade a good choice!

Photos by Ben Apfelbaum

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.