Jon Ronson: Tales of Everday Craziness
Speakers: Jon Ronson Award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson is fascinated by the irrational. He has exposed the outright lunacy of some of the world’s most powerful people in his two best-sellers Adventures with Extremists and The Men who Stare at Goats (soon to be an all star cast Hollywood movie). His hilarious new […]
A Passion For Jazz
Speakers: Hannah Rothschild The film-maker Hannah Rothschild describes her great aunt Pannonica Rothschild as “the one who got away” from the weight of responsibility attached to the family name. She moved from war-torn France and set up home in New York in the early 1950s, where she soon became patron and friend to bebop greats […]
On the Contrary
Speakers: Tony Leon, James Harding In his autobiography, On the Contrary: Leading the Opposition in the New South Africa, Tony Leon, leader of the opposition to the ANC for thirteen years, looks back on a half century of South African politics from the fight to end Apartheid to the birth and near death of the […]
Moveable Feasts
Speakers: Jayne Cohen, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Michele Roberts For many of us, nothing makes us feel more Jewish than some chopped liver or gefilte fish? Yet, Jamie Oliver would not approve of the shtetl’s diet. Jayne Cohen, Yasmin Alibhai Brown and Michele Roberts held a delicious and mouth-watering discussion on food and identity.
Art and Graft
Speakers: Eva Hoffman, Richard Sennett, Jonathan Heawood Eva Hoffman and Richard Sennett, both intellectuals and musicians of the highest standing, discussed what makes the difference between a good and a great performer and the very concept of genius. They argue whether the view of the artist as superior to the craftsman is romantic idealism or […]
Quest for Identity
Speakers: Susan Greenfield, Lisa Jardine The nature of individual identity was dissected by two of Britain’s most outstanding intellectuals, renowned for their prominence in many disciplines and their ability to make complicated issues understandable. They discussed human nature, our past, what makes us individual, the connection between the brain and the mind and what a […]
Jacob’s Legacy
Speakers: David Goldstein, Hilly Janes Who are the Jews? Where did they come from? What is the connection between an ancient Jewish priest in Jerusalem and today’s Israeli sunbather on the beaches of Tel Aviv? The author of Jacob’s Legacy, David Goldstein has been commended for his gift for translating complex scientific concepts into language […]
Jewish Mothers on Screen
Speakers: Trudy Gold The Jewish mother has been depicted as myth, matriarch and even monstrous. As one trawls through Hollywood, British films and even BT commercials what emerges is an extraordinary stereotype – overprotective, demanding, feeding, generally sexless, over emotional, materialistic and aspirational for her husband and children. This presentation featured archetypal Jewish mothers from […]
A Passion for Politics
Speakers: Greville Janner, Denis Macshane Lord Janner of Braunstone QC, Greville Janner, Labour Member of the House of Lords, has always been passionate about politics. At Cambridge, he was both President of the Union and Union Labour Club. While at the House of Commons, he campaigned for human rights and industrial relations and was a […]
American Fervour
Speakers: Simon Schama For most people outside the United States, America’s religious fervour conjures up images of intolerance and ultra-conservatism. But Barack Obama captured a large chunk of the evangelical vote and slavery would never have been abolished without the hot gospellers of the nineteenth century. The story of the way religion plays out in […]
The Counterfeiter
Speakers: Adolf Burger, Joanna Newman Winner of the 2008 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, The Counterfeiters retraces the true story of Adolf Burger, recounted in his memoirThe Devil’s Workshop. A typographer by trade, he became one of a group of deportees forced to produce impeccable imitation bank notes in Sachsenhausen concentration camp with […]
Sashenka: Fiction and History
Speakers: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Ariana Koek He had been commended for the lively pace of his biographies of Stalin and Catherine the Great. From megalomaniac leaders to ordinary people, who believed in the Revolution, but were crushed by its machinery, the move from History to story-making was only natural, or was it? Montefiore spoke about […]