Three Books in Three Photographs
Speakers: Philippe Sands Philippe Sands discusses his book East West Street and the images that were significant in its writing.
What’s The Point of a Library in the Digital Age?
Speakers: Aviad Stollman, Roly Keating, Adam Taub What are the challenges and opportunities for libraries in the 21st century? Can they offer anything more than cafés with free Wi-Fi? Director of the British Library, Roly Keating, and Head of Collections at the National Library of Israel, Aviad Stollman, discuss vital issues including open access, provenance […]
Howard Jacobson On The Writing Of Howard Jacobson
Speakers: Howard Jacobson, Alex Clark Howard Jacobson writes with his customary thunder, passion and peerless wit in his latest collection of journalism, The Dog’s Last Work (and other Pieces). As eloquent in person as he is on the page, the incomparable Jacobson is in conversation with Alex Clark.
Jewish Venice
Speakers: Shaul Bassi, Paulo Gnignati, acqueline Nicholls, Aviad Stollman Shaul Bassi masterminded the events in the summer of 2016 to commemorate the 500-year anniversary of the Venetian Ghetto, including the production in Italian of The Merchant of Venice. Paulo Gnignati is current President of the Venetian Jewish community; Jacqueline Nicholls was one of the eight artists […]
Till We Have Built Jerusalem
Speakers: Adina Hoffman, Ian Black Adina Hoffman’s Till We Have Built Jerusalem is a stunning rumination on memory and forgetting, place and displacement. A biographical excavation of one of the world’s great troubled cities, it is a riveting and intimate journey into the very different lives of three architects who helped shape modern Jerusalem: celebrated […]
The Nobel Factor
Speakers: Avner Offer, Will Hutton Our confidence in markets comes from economics, and our confidence in economics is underpinned by the Nobel Prize in Economics, first awarded in 1969. Avner Offer’s The Nobel Factor offers an unprecedented account of the impact of economics in the actual world: economic theory may be speculative, but its effects […]
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered
Speakers: Clare Grafik, Maya Benton In a richly illustrated talk Maya Benton presents Roman Vishniac Rediscovered, featuring the full range of his artistic genius. In addition to his iconic images of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust there are unpublished photographs spanning more than six decades, including images of pre-war Berlin, post-war displaced […]
Jews of Ireland
Speakers: Ruth Gilligan, Simon Lewis, Jonathan Self Through their respective works of fiction and poetry, Ruth Gilligan and Simon Lewis tell haunting stories of Ireland’s once-thriving Jewish communities. Ruth Gilligan’s beautiful and heartbreaking novel Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan spans three generations of Dublin Jews, intertwining their narratives and posing fierce questions about identity […]
Fathers, Sons and Autism
Funny and moving in equal measure, Jem Lester’s Shtum and Keith Stuart’s A Boy Made of Blocks reflect the authors’ personal experiences with their autistic sons. In Shtum, Jonah – blissful in his innocence – becomes the prism through which all the complicated strands of personal identity, family history and misunderstanding are finally untangled. To […]
Powerful Intergenerational Love Stories
Speakers: Sarit Yishai-Levi, Gerald Jacobs, Julia Neuberger Sarit Yishai-Levi’s dazzling The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem is a bestselling novel of stories told and untold, following four generations of a Jerusalem Sephardi family through times of dramatic change. Gerald Jacobs’ Nine Love Letters, based on true events, is the tale of two families who flee their […]
Literary Espionage
Speakers: Natasha Walter, Simon Mawer, Barry Forshaw Sweeping and exhilarating, brimming with passion and betrayal, the new works of two well-known writers are compelling page-turners. In her debut novel, A Quiet Life, feminist activist Natasha Walter, author of the iconic Living Dolls, tells a warm-blooded story of Cold War duplicity and deception. In Tightrope, bestselling, […]
Margaret Thatcher And The Middle East
Speakers: Azriel Bermant, Stephen Pollard Azriel Bermant’s Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East presents a fresh analysis of Britain’s role in the Middle East, based on recently declassified papers. Bermant questions claims that the Prime Minister sought to counter the Foreign Office’s Middle East policy, and maintains that Thatcher was in close agreement with the […]