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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
Speakers: Elif Shafak, Sam Leith Dubbed ‘one of the best writers in the world today’ by author Hanif Kureishi, novelist Elif Shafak has produced a work of great power and beauty. Sex worker Leila is dying, her body abandoned in a rubbish dump. In the last ten minutes 38 seconds of her life she recollects […]
The Swiss, The Nazis & The Stolen Gold
Speakers: Tom Bower, Adam Lebor, Hella Pick Switzerland not only financed the Nazis and refused admission to the Jewish refugees fleeing them; the country’s most senior government officials and financial institutions systematically conspired to keep billions in gold and other valuables deposited by Jews in Swiss banks or stolen by the Nazis from their rightful […]
Around The World in 80 Trees: An Illustrated Odyssey
Author, Eden Project trustee, WWF ambassador and former BBC TV science producer and commissioner Jonathan Drori has produced a glorious love letter to trees, our most constant and varied companion. Trees shape our lives, bountiful givers of food, medicine, sanctuary – and poisons. From India’s sacred banyan to the perfumed cedars of Lebanon, take an illustrated tour […]
Red Sea Spies
Speakers: Raffi Berg, Jenni Frazer BBC journalist Raffi Berg tells the true story of Mossad’s fake holiday resort on the Red Sea, a diving centre on the Sudanese coast run by secret service operatives. It attracted tourists from all over the world. In reality the agents used it as a cover to smuggle thousands of […]
House of Trelawney
Speakers: Hannah Rothschild, Lucy Silver Hannah Rothschild, writer, documentary filmmaker, business woman and philanthropist presents her deliciously funny new novel – at once a moving love story and dazzling social satire – set in the parallel and seemingly unconnected worlds of the British aristocracy and high finance. This is a story about old money, new […]
Being Jewish Today
Speakers: Tony Bayfield, Miriam Berger Scholar Tony Bayfield is a former Head of Britain’s Movement for Reform Judaism. Beginning with an account of the journey of the Jewish people and thought from ancient times to the present, Being Jewish Today explores Jewish identity and its relationship to Jewish tradition and belief. In conversation with his […]
The Cairo Genizah
For a millennium the Jewish community of Old Cairo placed their old books and other writings, from marriage contracts and love letters, to children’s drawings and even drafts from the hands of Maimonides, in a genizah, or storeroom, of the Ben Ezra Synagogue. In 1896 Dr Solomon Schechter, a Talmudic scholar, was granted permission by […]