Writing for young adults is a genre of its own, prompting the challenges one might expect in creating enjoyable, age-appropriate, but trenchant works of fiction for those of not-quite adult status, who in many ways are wiser than their parents. In the first hour, authors Keren David, Hilary Freeman and Miriam Halahmy will discuss how they meet these challenges. In the second, you will have the chance to pitch your idea for a children’...

Jonathan Dean writes of the trials, tribulations, tragedies and successes of his grandfather and great grandfather as they fled persecution, comparing their struggles to those that beset today’s refugees. Tony Kushner explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, to place them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present.

Lipika Pelham tells the extraordinary story of the Sephardi Jews of 17th century Amsterdam. The community, part of a ‘carnival of nations’ formed of French Huguenots, North African merchants, Spanish Moriscos and Iberian New Christians, was integral to the success of the Dutch Golden Age. They traded, wrote, staged plays and were painted by Rembrandt. They achieved unparalleled freedoms. While Jews elsewhere were confined to the ghetto, this community dared to nurture the ‘H...