A message from Claudia Rubenstein, Director, Jewish Literary Foundation:
Our 73rd successive annual festival, and the first under our new identity of the Jewish Literary Foundation, saw over 10,000 ticket holders join us in-person at Kings Place, London, with an unprecedented number of under ‘30s taking up our £5 ticket offer.
Audience members always ask me what my highlights of the festival are. To me, they are all highlights. Our opening night saw Lemn Sissay delighting the audience with poems, anecdotes and a reveal of his recently discovered Jewish heritage, and Howard Jacobson, Emma Barnett & Sally Berkovic joining Hugo Rifkind to discuss Being Jewish in Modern Britain. The following day was one of the most popular in our long history as thousands of you attended 27 events across five spaces within Kings Place, from Booker Prize nominees Elif Shafak & Sarah Bernstein and our Genesis Emerging Writers Programme to Simon Schama's keynote and Nicholas Hytner & Elliot Levey giving their audience the scoop on their new Royal Court collaboration Giant, a day before it was announced to press.
Monday - Thursday last week saw a mix of online and in-person events, including David Baddiel, Hadley Freeman, Israeli Fiction Today and Daniel Finkelstein at Kings Place and discussions on identity, Bogart & Bacall, cities and much more besides. Then the final weekend began with a one-off production Kafka's Trial, starring Henry Goodman, Eve Matheson & Daniel Fraser. This was followed on our final day with thousands more of you heading to Kings Place for some 28 conversations, performances, talks and debates featuring debut novelists, world-renowned musicians, podcasters, political experts and many more, including Micah Goodman, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Anthony Julius, Margaret Hodge, Jonathan Freedland, Daniel Gordis and Dahlia Scheindlin.
