Diaspora Jews: A Shifting Landscape
How has the Jewish diaspora changed in recent years? Daniel Schwammenthal, Jewish Chronicle editor and former AJC Transatlantic Institute director, will be joined by leading voices from across the world to consider identity and the evolving challenges and opportunities facing Jews today within the diaspora’s shifting landscape. Including Sarah Hurwitz, senior speechwriter for the Obamas […]
Translation: An Unfolding Dialogue
The Freudenheim Translation Prize – the most ambitious award in the Jewish Literary Foundation’s 75-year history – celebrates outstanding fiction and non-fiction in English translation. Following its inaugural year, judges Boyd Tonkin, Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand and Hephzibah Anderson join TLS fiction editor Toby Lichtig to discuss the art of translation and its vital role […]
Unpacking Israel & Palestine
Philosopher Peter Hacker reflects on the ideological debates that have followed the events of 7 October, drawing on arguments from his recent work on contemporary forms of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. He is joined by historian Colin Shindler, whose book A Forever War traces the historical development of the Israel-Palestine conflict and examines the challenges of […]
Jewish Book Week at 75: A Celebration – Panel Discussion
Celebrate the 75th edition of London’s longest-running – and many would say best! – literary festival with words and music. In conversation with Hugo Rifkind, guests include three of Jewish Book Week’s favourite speakers – Howard Jacobson, Claudia Roden, and Sir Simon Schama, all at school when the festival began in 1952. Opening the evening, internationally renowned pianist Margaret Fingerhut MBE […]
Jewish Book Week at 75: A Celebration – Performance
Celebrate the 75th edition of London’s longest-running – and many would say best! – literary festival with words and music. In conversation with Hugo Rifkind, guests include three of Jewish Book Week’s favourite speakers – Howard Jacobson, Claudia Roden, and Sir Simon Schama, all at school when the festival began in 1952. Opening the evening, internationally renowned pianist Margaret Fingerhut MBE […]
Israel: Behind the Headlines
How is Israel understood abroad, and why does its portrayal so often diverge from the view inside the country itself? Two of Israel’s most incisive commentators, Matti Friedman and Anshel Pfeffer, explore the fault lines between foreign reporting and on-the-ground reality. In conversation with journalist Jenni Fraser, they examine how global coverage of Israel is […]
Can We Still Trust Auntie?
Is the BBC a bundle of contradictions? Criticised for giving Nigel Farage a platform on Question Time yet denounced by the Reform leader as “despicable”; accused of bias by supporters of Israel, Palestine, Labour and the Conservatives alike; admired globally while another Director General departs under a Trump-inspired cloud — what does the future hold for […]
Freudenheim Translation Prize: Discover the Shortlist, Meet the Winner
Join us to celebrate the shortlist of the inaugural Freudenheim Translation Prize. Showcasing novels, short stories, memoir, and philosophy translated from Yiddish, Hebrew, Slovak, French, and German, the shortlist illuminates the richness of Jewish experience. Judges Boyd Tonkin, Hephzibah Anderson and Shoshana Boyd Gelfand will discuss the shortlisted works and their significance, translators will read […]
Dog: Yishay Ishi Ron in Conversation
In Dog, Israeli writer Yishay Ishi Ron draws on his own experience of war and recovery to create an unflinching, humane portrait of a soldier’s life after combat. Geller, once a decorated officer, now roams Tel Aviv’s margins, haunted by memories of battle and the death of a dog in Gaza. When a stray crosses […]
Ideology, Violence & Justice
Since October 7, the term settler colonialism has moved from academic and activist circles into mainstream conversation. Some progressives now use it to justify Hamas’ attacks, arguing that Israel, created on land taken from an indigenous population, can never be legitimate. In On Settler Colonialism, poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch expands on his October […]
The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz
What role could music possibly play in a death camp? In 1943, 50 female inmates were conscripted into an orchestra at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Amid unimaginable brutality, they performed for both exhausted forced labourers and their Nazi captors—a harrowing existence that, nonetheless, saved nearly all their lives. Award-winning historian Anne Sebba brings this extraordinary story to light, […]
Writing Israel: Yossi Klein Halevi & Daniel Taub
For decades, Yossi Klein Halevi and Daniel Taub have explored Israel’s complex story with nuance and insight. Now, they come together to discuss the challenges and opportunities of writing about the country today. Halevi’s Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist recounts his journey from being a follower of Meir Kahane to rejecting Jewish radicalism, while his […]