Events 2018
From Things Lost
08/03/2018 - 2:30 pm
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Professor Shirli Gibert and Ambassador Yitzchak Mayer discuss their new books, stories of memory and survival told through letters. Chaired by Jenni Frazer....
Transitions
08/03/2018 - 1:00 pm
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Yael Dayan, daughter of the legendary Moshe Dayan, looks back at her life as a fierce and eloquent activist and influential politician. Chaired by Janet Suzm...
Against All The Odds: From Genocide To Football Glory
07/03/2018 - 2:30 pm
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David Bolchover discusses his extraordinary new biography of Béla Guttmann, Holocaust survivor and the world’s first celebrity football coach.
A Rocky Road
07/03/2018 - 1:00 pm
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Rabbi Abraham Levy’s memoir tells of his devotion to, and exceptional influence on, Jewish public life and the Sephardi London community for over 50 years....
The Children Of Willesden Lane
06/03/2018 - 1:00 pm
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Mona performs some of her mother’s favourite classical selections at the piano, as well as excerpts from the award-winning stage show, The Pianist of Wille...
Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory
06/03/2018 - 1:00 pm
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In this talk, Griselda Pollock discusses her major re-evaluation of Berlin born artist, Charlotte Salomon, which sheds new light on her remarkable combinatio...
Of Places and People, Art & Literature
11/03/2018 - 3:30 pm
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Alba Arikha and Janet Wolff present their stunning and idiosyncratic coming-of-age memoirs, exploring their family backgrounds, from post-war Manchester to 1...
The Hebrew Republic: Israel’s Return To History
11/03/2018 - 8:00 pm
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In his collection of essays Colin Shindler presents his very personal take on Israel, based on over 50 years of writing on the subject for The New York Times...
Flight
11/03/2018 - 6:30 pm
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Jonathan Dean writes of the trials, tribulations, tragedies and successes of his grandfather and great grandfather as they fled persecution, comparing their ...
Three Floors Up
11/03/2018 - 5:00 pm
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Set in an upper-middle-class Tel Aviv apartment building, prize-winning author Eshkol Nevo’s brilliant recent novel, translated by Sondra Silverstein, pres...
The Story of Hebrew
11/03/2018 - 2:00 pm
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In this unique narrative of the Hebrew language from biblical to modern times, Professor Lewis Glinert explores the extraordinary hold that Hebrew has had on...
Small Pieces: A book of lamentations
11/03/2018 - 12:30 am
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Poet Joanne Limburg has produced an exquisite and heart-breaking memoir of her childhood, her Jewishness, her mother’s death, and how she came to terms wit...
Travellers In the Third Reich
11/03/2018 - 12:30 pm
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During the 1920s and 1930s, German tourism was booming, particularly among Americans and the British. Attracted by the scenery, the food, the culture, and th...
A History of Judaism
11/03/2018 - 11:00 am
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In this authoritative and fascinating study, Professor Martin Goodman outlines a global history of Judaism, from its inception amongst the polytheistic socie...
In Therapy
10/03/2018 - 7:30 pm
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Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the publication of Fat is a Feminist Issue, pioneering therapist Susie Orbach presents the extended new edition of th...
Bibliotherapy
08/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Viv Groskop in her luminous The Anna Karenina Fix, finds the answers to life’s burning questions in the great Russian novels. Not sure what to do with your...
The Future of War
08/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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Lawrence Freedman who is an authority on war and warfare, past and present, and consultant to governments on conflict, is joined by the BBC World Affairs edi...
Gravitational Waves: The Voice of Space
07/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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On 14 September 2015, gravitational waves were first detected on Earth. The source – two merging black holes – briefly pumped out 50 times more power tha...
The Play’s The Thing
11/03/2018 - 6:30 pm
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These three towering Shakespeareans who have taught, written about, directed and performed the greatest dramatist of all times, engage in a witty and illumin...
Borders: Life on the Edge
07/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Scottish Book of the Year author, Kapka Kassabova, presents in Border a sharply-observed portrait of a little-known corner of Europe, the enigmatic zone betw...
War and the Death of News
07/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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‘Grade B Reporter’, Martin Bell, has covered major international conflicts, from Vietnam to Bosnia, from Northern Ireland to the Six-Day War and Iraq. On...
Why We Eat What We Eat: Food Myths Exposed
21/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Why are 27% of drinks bought on aeroplanes tomato juice? Why do we consume 35% more food when eating with one more person, and 75% more when with three? This...
The Reputation Game
06/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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We are all playing the Reputation Game, whether or not we know it. In the prevailing climate of social media, acquiring the reputation you desire, and avoidi...
Year of Wonder: Classical Music For Every Day
05/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Have you ever wanted to know more about the classical canon but had no idea where to begin? Are you an aficionado who would like to widen your acquaintance w...
Making a Noise
05/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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Journalist, broadcaster, and commanding figure in the arts, John Tusa has had a career fighting for – and winning victories – for the UK’s cultural and...
Just Not Kosher
04/03/2018 - 6:30 pm
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Steven Morris has always cooked; his photographer son Rick Pushinsky has always eaten. Just Not Kosher is a stunning collection of recipe cards that began as...
Family Angst
04/03/2018 - 5:00 pm
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Fractured and fractious families are at the heart of two witty contemporary morality tales. Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land traces the trajectory of the...
Escapades in Food and Wine
04/03/2018 - 2:00 pm
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New Statesman wine critic, Nina Caplan, explores the history of the grape, depicting delightful portraits of the eccentric characters she meets – from Cata...
Dark Stories
04/03/2018 - 12:30 pm
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In Rick Gekoski’s Darke, the protagonist eschews the outside world, turning to philosophers and poets to make sense of humanity’s tragic essence. But jus...
Russia’s Ghosts
06/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Three of today’s finest writers and commentators on Russian history and politics explore the parallels between then and now – Stalin’s era and Puti...
The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge
04/03/2018 - 11:00 am
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The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the iconic landmarks of the New York skyline; it has stood for more than 130 years, taking fourteen dramatic years to complete....
Year of the Mad King
05/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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Antony Sher played the title role in Gregory Doran’s critically acclaimed RSC production of King Lear and his stupendous performance was designated ‘a cr...
News:Truth or Fiction?
05/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Trust in the media is at an all-time low. How does the media exert its power, and are the stories that are told in repressive regimes so different from those...
Jewish Comedy: A Serious History
11/03/2018 - 5:00 pm
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Jeremy Dauber delivers a breath-taking and enthralling illustrated history of Jewish humour ‘in all its vast and variegated forms from antiquity to yesterd...
Biblical Fiction
04/03/2018 - 8:00 pm
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Michael Baum and Paul Boorstin discuss why biblical stories remain a rich source of inspiration. Michael Baum’s novel Aaron’s Rod is a murder mystery, ta...
Gardens Of Delight
11/03/2018 - 3:30 pm
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Gardens have been a source of enchantment since the dawn of time. Today’s speakers illuminate why gardening can be as vital an expression of the creative i...
Between the Lines
04/03/2018 - 3:30 pm
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As Leonard Cohen has written, ‘there’s a blaze of light in every word’. Words shape our personal identities, our relationships and our societies. They ...
Balancing Acts
11/03/2018 - 2:00 pm
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Legendary ex-Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Nicholas Hytner, equally known as an opera director, takes us behind the scenes of Britain’s greate...
The Nemirovsky Question
04/03/2018 - 11:00 am
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Irène Némirovsky was a literary superstar of the 1920s and 1930s but a controversial figure in her lifetime, seen by some as a self-hating Jew. Born in Tsa...
The Jewish Journey: 4000 Years In 22 Objects
11/03/2018 - 12:30 pm
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Consummate story-teller, Rebecca Abrams, offers tantalising glimpses into Jewish history through the prism of her personal selection from Oxford’s Ashmolea...
The Jewish Question in 20th Century Literature
04/03/2018 - 5:00 pm
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Racial and religious prejudice, persecution and the complexities of assimilation, forced 19th and 20th century writers and thinkers such as Kafka, Proust, Zw...
The Rise & Fall Of Adam and Eve
11/03/2018 - 11:00 am
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To world-renowned literary critic and Pulitzer Prize-winner, Stephen Greenblatt, the story of Adam and Eve is a prism refracting our most primitive fears and...
Making Sense of Terror
04/03/2018 - 3:30 pm
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Gabrielle Rifkind offers a unique insight into the psychology of political extremism. When we talk about IS and similar groups, we approach the...
Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews In Palastine and Israel, 1917-2017
08/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Ian Black draws on four decades of experience as a Middle East correspondent steeped in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to present a gripping narrative of ...
Israel at 70: is the country facing an identity crisis?
10/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Peace with the Palestinians remains elusive but, given soaring economic disparity, the widening gulf between secular, moderately religious and ultra-Orthodox...
Gershom Scholem – Stranger In A Strange Land
04/03/2018 - 8:00 pm
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George Prochnik, in a vivid and compelling mix of biography and personal memoir, traces the life and thought of the visionary founder of the modern study of ...
American Jews: Settlers and Sceptics
08/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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In City on a Hilltop, Sara Hirschhorn tackles the much-contested American settler movement. Over 60,000 Jewish-Americans have settled in the territories sinc...
Feeling Jewish (A Book For Just About Anyone)
04/03/2018 - 6:30 pm
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Why are ‘negative’ feelings such as self-hatred, guilt, resentment, paranoia, hysteria, and overbearing mother-love characterised as ‘Jewish’? In her...
Brit(ish): on Race, identity and Belonging
07/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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You’re British. Your parents are British. You were raised in Britain. Your partner, your children and most of your friends are British. So why do people ke...
Anti-Politics
04/03/2018 - 2:00 pm
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The West has seen a rising tide of populist and anti-political feeling, resulting in Brexit and Trump. Eliane Glaser scrutinises this new wave of populism, l...
The Strange Death of Europe
06/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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Is Europe a continent with its finger on the self-destruct button? Douglas Murray reflects on Europe’s pervasive and seemingly unfathomable inertia in the ...
Uprooted
03/03/2018 - 7:00 pm
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Israel’s declaration of independence precipitated not only the birth of a Jewish state, but the beginnings of a mass upheaval, as the ancient Jewish commun...
Warner Bros and the Making of the American Dream
04/03/2018 - 2:00 pm
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David Thomson is arguably the world’s greatest living film critic and writer on the movies. His New Biographical Dictionary of Film was voted by Sight and ...
Trump ‘On Trial’
04/03/2018 - 8:00 pm
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Freedland, Jacobson and Schama take on Donald Trump, at least figuratively, as they compete for bandwidth to expose the latest exploits of the Western Worldâ...
Synagogues in the Islamic World
11/03/2018 - 8:00 pm
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In this exquisite volume Professor Mohammad Gharipour charts the development of synagogues in lands under Muslim rule, from North Africa and Spain to Central...
One Italian Family’s Fight Against Fascism
11/03/2018 - 5:00 pm
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Award-winning writer Caroline Moorehead, in the concluding volume of her remarkable WW2 Resistance trilogy, draws on the unseen letters and diaries of an ext...
Momentous Years: 1947-1948
11/04/2018 - 3:30 pm
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In 1947, Elisabeth Ã…sbrink, previous winner of the August Prize, intertwines global events with key moments from her personal history as the daughter of a H...
24/7: The Life of a Junior Doctor
04/03/2018 - 3:30 pm
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Junior doctors turned best-selling authors, Rachel Clarke and Adam Kay, offer poignant, honest – at times hilarious – accounts of their experiences as NH...
How to find a Black Cat in a Dark Room
11/03/2018 - 6:30 pm
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Why do smart people make stupid mistakes? Why do tall, slim people earn more? Does society determine who we are? What really makes us tick? Internationally a...
Moral Dilemmas
04/03/2018 - 6:30 pm
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We are a people with the baggage of millennia. The practice and tradition contained in our book of books concerning fundamental life lessons are often forgot...
Gustav Klimt at Home
11/03/2018 - 1:30 pm
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Art and cultural historian Patrick Bade was a lecturer for the MA programme at Christie’s Education in London until 2015. A prolific author, his publicatio...
Melanie Phillips and Maureen Lipman in conversation
04/03/2018 - 11:00 am
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Doyennes of the media and stage, Melanie Phillips and Maureen Lipman, explore their politics, passions, writing, journalism and broadcasting, coinciding with...
A Street in Berlin: 1904 — 2014
11/03/2018 - 11:00 am
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Pascale Hugues embarks on a quest to learn more about the city she lives in, producing a stunning history in the process. Looking at one rather ordinary stre...
Belonging: The Story of the Jews
04/03/2018 - 12:30 pm
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Simon Schama’s Belonging is alive with energy, character and colour. Written in his inimitable style, this is a magnificent cultural history. It spans cent...
The Big Debate: Today, Tomorrow…
03/03/2018 - 8:30 pm
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Our panel of global experts outlines the latest developments in artificial intelligence, politics, society and economics, analysing their impact on the world...