We are proud to present our new identity – the Jewish Literary Foundation – the UK’s platform for Jewish writing and ideas, bringing you an exciting range of programmes and events.
Who We Are
The Jewish Book Council charity was founded in 1947, and in 1952 it launched the first Jewish Book Week. The Book Council’s aim was ‘to stimulate and encourage the reading of books on every aspect of Jewish thought, life, history and literature’, emphasising that ‘no generation in Jewry which neglects the basic importance of the book can hope to survive. The book retains a unique significance as an everlasting emblem of the Jewish way of life.’
Over the past 70 years, under the Jewish Book Week banner, our activities have ranged from the annual Book Week festival itself and nationwide events, to programmes in schools, translation prizes, children’s poetry prizes, mentoring young writers, and most recently the development of a growing online digital archive of over 1,000 hours of festival discussions with the world’s leading writers and thinkers.
New forms of writing and communication have created new literary forms. The book now sits alongside the text, the tweet, the email, the online ‘zine, the spoken word, the rap, the slam poem, the app, and the digital labyrinth that is the internet, as the ways in which the literary lives and breathes.
While the channels may have evolved and expanded, the written word in any form continues to play a critical role in our culture, as a way to engage with the world, understand our place within it, challenge assumptions, argue for and against ideas, and to promote open-minded exchanges and freedom of expression as vital social values.
The Jewish Literary Tradition
We continue to believe, as our predecessors did in 1947, that we play a crucial role in encouraging active engagement with Jewish books and ideas, and in building awareness of our rich Jewish literary tradition which has sustained and developed our culture, and embodies our identity and heritage.
The Jewish Literary Foundation
To reflect our ambitions for the future, we are now known as the Jewish Literary Foundation. Our aim is to continue to highlight the best of literary and cultural ideas with high calibre activities that actively engage both our UK community and international audiences. We wish to celebrate through our events and programmes the most important and influential writers, books and ideas, further inspiring and encouraging our readers and writers of tomorrow, and helping to build a life-long passion for the literary tradition in the Jewish and wider communities with audiences of all ages. We welcome you to be part of the exciting continuing journey across all our channels and events.
