The Europeans
Award-winning historian Orlando Figes presents an enthralling, panoramic cultural history of 19th century Europe through the prism of the intertwined lives of opera singer Pauline Viardot, novelist Ivan Turgenev, and connoisseur Louis Viardot – Pauline’s husband. Their friends numbered Flaubert, Chopin, Dickens, Rossini, George Sand, Liszt and Delacroix. They were the arbiters of a pan-European […]
Primo Levi: The Elements of a Life
In 1987 the Italian writer Primo Levi fell to his death in the house where he was born. More than 40 years after his rescue from a Nazi concentration camp, it now appeared that Levi had committed suicide. Levi’s writings, including his account of his time in Auschwitz, If This is a Man, incisively interrogate […]
Partition Voices
The partitions of India and Pakistan and Israel and Palestine are two of the most tumultuous events of the 20th Century. Remarkable parallels exist between the two experiences. Journalist and broadcaster Kavita Puri, in conversation with Harvard Professor Derek Penslar, explore the similarities in nationalism, relations with the international and diaspora communities, the acceptance or […]
Misadventures in Chelm (and other stories)
Speakers: Mark Binder Have you heard of Chelm, the village of fools? They make you smile and laugh. In Mark Binder’s spoken and written stories you’ll meet the wise Rabbi Kibbitz and the wiser Mrs Chaipul. You’ll meet Reb Stein the baker, and his disaster of an apprentice, Muddle. Mark’s event for all ages is […]
Mazel Tov!
Speakers: J.S. Margot, Justine Solomons In 1987, 20-year-old student J.S. Margot responded to a job advertisement from an Orthodox Jewish couple in Antwerp to tutor their four children. This is the story of her extraordinary friendship with the family. Full of misunderstandings and unexpected connections, Mazel Tov is a provocative and disarmingly honest memoir of […]
Legacy
Speakers: Thomas Harding, Jenni Frazer In the early 1800s Lehmann Gluckstein fled Eastern Europe for Whitechapel. He and his family created a small tobacco factory that eventually became the largest catering company in the world: J. Lyons. For over a century Lyons restaurants and corner houses were on every high street, bringing the world to […]
How We Remember
Speakers: Gabriel Josipovici, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Ruth Deech, Sue MacGregor The Holocaust has become a defining ingredient in the Jewish collective memory. The Torah commands us ‘to remember’, because in memory exists conscience. But 75 years since the liberation of the camps, how we remember the attempt to wipe the Jewish people from the face of […]
Heroes or Villains: The Blair Goverment Reconsidered
Speakers: Jon Davis, John Rentoul, David Triesman For 13 years Tony Blair was the political colossus in Britain, winning three elections in a row for New Labour. Today he is disowned by many in his own party. Drawing on contributions from the main players in the Blair government, including the former Prime Minister himself, authors […]
Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed The World 1847-1947
Moses said the Law is everything. Jesus said love is everything. Marx said money is everything. Freud said sex is everything. Einstein said everything is relative. The latter three were among a small number of men and women who transformed how we see the world in the period 1847 – 1947. Author Norman Lebrecht discusses […]
Family Business
Speakers: Peter Conradi, Charlotte Mendelson Peter Conradi’s ‘masterpiece’ of a memoir ranges from his European Jewish forebears who came to Britain in the Victorian era to novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, whose biography Conradi wrote. He writes movingly of their close relationship, of his public school and life on a kibbutz, of participating in the […]
Enemies of the People? How Judges Shape Society
Speakers: John Dyson, Dinah Rose, Philippe Sands, Joshua Rozenberg Do judges use the power of the state for the good of the nation? Or do they create new laws in line with their personal views? When newspapers reported a court ruling on Brexit, senior judges were shocked to see themselves condemned as enemies of the […]
Einstein on the Run
Speakers: Andrew Robinson In the autumn of 1933, Albert Einstein was living alone in an isolated holiday hut in Norfolk, ‘on the run’ from Nazi death threats. There, he toiled peacefully at mathematics while occasionally stepping out for walks or to play his violin. Andrew Robinson tells the story of the world’s greatest scientist’s long […]