Jewish Book Week at 75: A Celebration – Panel Discussion

02/28/2026
56 min
[video_views]

Celebrate the 75th edition of London’s longest-running – and many would say best! – literary festival with words and music. In conversation with Hugo Rifkind, guests include three of Jewish Book Week’s favourite speakers – Howard JacobsonClaudia Roden, and Sir Simon Schama, all at school when the festival began in 1952. Opening the evening, internationally renowned pianist Margaret Fingerhut MBE and violinist Bradley Creswick, Leader Emeritus of Royal Northern Sinfonia will perform works by George Gershwin, Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Henryk Wieniawski and Ernest Bloch.

About the speakers

Claudia Roden

Claudia Roden is a food writer with a special interest in the history and cultural background of food. Born in Egypt, she specialises in the cuisines of the Middle East and North Africa, the Mediterranean and in Jewish food. Her books are said to have influenced what we eat in Britain today and to have […]

Simon Schama

Sir Simon Schama’s award-winning books include A History of Britain and The Story of the Jews. He has written and presented over 50 films for the BBC on subjects as diverse as Tolstoy and American politics, and he co-presented the landmark series on the history of world art, Civilisations. Image © Charlie Bibby

Hugo Rifkind

Hugo Rifkind is an award-winning Edinburgh-born journalist who writes columns for The Times, The Spectator and GQ. He writes the satirical Times column My Week on Saturdays and is a frequent panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz and presents his own show for Times Radio.

Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson has written seventeen novels and six works of non-fiction. He won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award in 2000 for The Mighty Walzer and then again in 2013 for Zoo Time. In 2010 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question; he was also shortlisted for the prize in 2014 for J.

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Jewish Book Week at 75: A Celebration – Panel Discussion

02/28/2026
|
56 min

Speaker

Claudia Roden

Claudia Roden is a food writer with a special interest in the history and cultural background of food. Born in Egypt, she specialises in...

Simon Schama

Sir Simon Schama’s award-winning books include A History of Britain and The Story of the Jews. He has written and presented over 50 films...

Hugo Rifkind

Hugo Rifkind is an award-winning Edinburgh-born journalist who writes columns for The Times, The Spectator and GQ. He writes the satirical Times column My...

Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson has written seventeen novels and six works of non-fiction. He won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award in 2000 for The Mighty Walzer...