The Vaccine
In January 2020, just weeks after the first known case and months before it took grip globally, immunologist Uğur Şahin told Özlem Türeci, his wife and decades-long research partner, that a vaccine against what would soon be known as COVID-19 could be developed before the end of the year. Initially facing widespread scepticism in the scientific community, […]
The Taming Of The Jew
Speakers: Tuvia Tenenbom, Rachel Riley Le Monde calls Tuvia Tenenbom “a mystical provocateur”, Die Welt “Michael Moore and Borat in one”; now in The Taming of the Jew the writer and founder of the Jewish Theatre of New York turns his attention to the United Kingdom. His latest international bestseller sees him take a nap […]
Jews of Crete
Speakers: Nicholas de Lange, Ruth Padel, Aviva Dautch Crete saw a higher proportion of Jews deported by the Nazis than any other country, virtually eliminating one of Europe’s oldest Jewish communities. Rabbi Nicholas de Lange, Professor of Hebrew & Jewish Studies at Cambridge and author of The Penguin Dictionary of Judaism, conducts high holiday services […]
Ridley Road
Speakers: Jo Bloom, Steve Silver, Dave Rich 50 years after its formation, the story of the anti-fascist 62 Group – the successor to the 43 Group, two veterans of which joined us at Jewish Book Week 2020 – remains relevant, as shown by the huge interest in the BBC1 drama Ridley Road, which took its name […]
Plunder
Speakers: Menachem Kaiser, Jenni Frazer In 2015 Menachem Kaiser discovered that the grandfather he had never met had tried for 30 years to reclaim an apartment building in Sosnowiec that had belonged to his family prior to World War Two. The Fulbright Fellow decided to take up his case and was soon on a circuitous […]
Looking for an Enemy
Speakers: Jo Glanville, Natasha Lehrer, Gideon Reuveni, Daniel Trilling What drives those who hate Jews? 75 years after the Shoah, conspiracy theories about Jews are back in the mainstream, from the left and the right; from the Pittsburgh gunman who murdered 11 people in a synagogue, to accusations against philanthropist George Soros of supporting ‘white […]
1952: World On The Cusp
Speakers: Maureen Lipman, A.N. Wilson, Nicolette Jones, Malcolm Rifkind, Mark Lawson 1952 saw the Queen ascend to the throne, The Mousetrap open in the West End and the first Jewish Book Week; all going strong 70 years on while thankfully London’s other big event, the Great Smog is not. Further afield, Albert Einstein declined the offer to […]
Seder
By Adam Kammerling, live score by Bellatrix and Antosh Wojcik, dance from Emma Houston, Ffion Campbell-Davies and Si Rawlinson A celebration of our unlikely existence and how history can bring us all together, in the form of an interdisciplinary piece combining poetry, music and more. Former UK poetry slam champion Adam Kammerling is joined by […]
Spark: How Genius Ignites
Speakers: Claudia Kalb, Harry Munt What are the origins of genius? How do luck, failure, personality and serendipity play into the arc of discovery? And why do some people reach extraordinary creative heights early in life while others achieve greatness decades later? New York Times bestseller Claudia Kalb joins us live from the US to […]
An Arab Doctor in Berlin
Speakers: Ronan Steinke, Anne Joseph Ronen Steinke, author & Süddeutsche Zeitung correspondent tells Anne Joseph the remarkable story of Mohammed Helmy, the Egyptian doctor who risked his life to save Jewish Berliners from the Nazis. Shining a light on the almost-forgotten world of Arab Berlin during the Weimar period, Steinke produces a riveting account of […]
The Gift of the Gab
Speakers: David Crystal Linguist, writer, editor and broadcaster David Crystal on how eloquence works.
The Ottomans
Speakers: Marc David Baer, Katherine Pangonis Thanks in part to the Ottomans, for much of history Jews have had a positive image of Muslims. Acclaimed historian Marc David Baer charts the intimate relations between Jews and the Ottoman dynasty from the arrival of the expelled Iberian Jews in the fifteenth century to the end of […]