Jewish book week
London’s international literary festival

Tracy-Ann Oberman

Tracy Ann Oberman is an English television, theatre and radio actress. Having trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Oberman spent four years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, before joining the National Theatre. She was recently seen performing as the lead inFiddler On The Roof at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Tracy has just been seen as a lead in Ridley Road. She is well known for her performances in Friday Night Dinner and It’s A Sin. 

Tracy is also a column contributor for The Guardian and was a regular contributor to the Jewish Chronicle and Red Magazine. As a playwright she has written a number of well received Radio 4 plays, including Bette and Joan, Baby Jane and most recently That Dinner of 67. 

Children of the Ghetto
Children of the Ghetto is Israel Zangwill’s epic tale of Jewish life in London, published in1892, describing both the poverty of the East End and the wealthy lives of the established Jews in the West End. Zangwill drew on his experiences of growing up in Whitechapel to paint a detailed and understanding picture of the lives of the immigrants. Children of the Ghetto is both a landmark work of modern Jewish fiction as well as an essential late Victorian te...
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JDOV: Jewish Dreams, Observations, Visions
Ever wondered what it would be like if you crossed Jewish Book Week with TED, the popular conference which asks inspiring speakers to give “the talk of their life”? Here’s your chance to find out. Launched at the annual UK Limmud Conference, JDOV talks are now happening around the world and can be viewed at www.jhub.org.uk/jdov Four speakers gave their all at Jewish Book Week, journalist and writer Jonathan Freedland, actor Tracy Ann Oberman, photographer Judah Passow and...
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Culture Wars: A Conversation
150 years after ‘Culture War’ (Kulturkampf) was first used to describe the clash between church and state in Prussia, and three decades after sociologist James Davison Hunter popularised the term, we see the US embroiled in often-violent divisions and increasingly divisive debate here in the UK on everything from language and storytelling to flags and masks. But to what extent are these tensions ‘wars’, exacerbated by social media and the press, or the normal heightened ‘conversatio...
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Shylock: Merchant & Matriarch
Something special to close our 72nd festival: star of stage and screen Tracy-Ann Oberman performing excerpts from a radical new production of The Merchant of Venice alongside a panel discussion sparked by one of Shakespeare’s most controversial characters. Set in London’s East End in 1936, Ridley Road actor Tracy-Ann is playing Shylock as a widowed single mother and refugee from Russia, running a small business from a cramped house in ...
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