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The dramatic discovery and publication of Suite Française, a manuscript her two daughters had carried around with them unaware of its value, made Irène Némirovsky famous worldwide and a great writer cut down in her prime by the Nazis. Since then, almost her novels have been made available to British readers. The latest, Dogs and Wolves, tells the poignant story of a young woman moving from Kiev to Paris and shows the contrast between the shtetl environment and the privileged life led by rich Jews. 

Némirovsky’s biographer, Olivier Philipponnat, talks about the discoveries he made during his research and brings her life and work together. He is joined by her daughter, Denise Epstein, and her translator, Sandra Smith.

In Rediscovering Traces of Memory, Jonathan Webber , with the help of Chris Schwarz’
arresting colour photographs of present-day Polish Galicia, has captured the traces of memory that remain of eight hundred years of Jewish life. The book"s last image is that of
the thriving Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow.
Here, Professor Webber talks to its founder, Janusz Makuch. The Festival drew an estimated 40 000 people in 2009, Jews and non-Jews, Poles and international visitors alike.

They discuss Jewish culture in today’s Poland, with Kate Craddy and ask whether we witness a genuine Jewish revival or the creation of a virtual world.

Join the editors of The Ultimate Book Guide and not one, but two much loved children’s writers, former Children"s Laureate, Anne Fine and Carnegie prize winning Meg Rosoff. They"ll share their favourite books and suggest a treasure trove of new reading.  

The award-winning author of Five Photos of My Wife and Chez Moi talks to Claudia Roden about her passions for writing and cooking and how they complement each other, about translating and being translated, about love, motherhood and the pursuit of happiness.

Born storyteller, Eli Amir, tells us about Baghdad and the period when Jews faced a most uncertain future, the subject of his beautiful novel, The Dove Flyer at long last available in English.

Chloe Aridjis reads from The Book of Clouds and discusses her highly atmospheric novel, set in contemporary Berlin, yet fraught with a sense of fragmentation and the haunting layers of history.

Susan Soyinka tells the story of the evacuation of the Jewish Free School to Cornwall during World War Two and a remarkable story of integration into village life. Ruth Barnett still remembers being forcibly parted from her parents, aged 4, leaving Berlin on a kindertransport to life in rural England and her traumatic post-war return to Germany.

They discuss the impact of war and displacement on children.

Hélène Cixous, one of France’s foremost intellectuals, talks to writer and literary critic Nicholas Royle. They will consider “Judeities”, a word and notion in the plural, favoured by Jacques Derrida over the more conventional terms “Judaism” and “Jewishness”. Together, they will reflect on the multiple political and poetical stakes of this neologism.
 
The discussion will be informed by Hélène Cixous’s recently translated novels, Love Itself and Hyperdream, as well as by her current work as playwright with Théâtre du Soleil. These works all stage in the most pressing manner the confrontation of writing with death, time and history.

Alan Yentob spends three days with legendary American playwright Arthur Miller, during the course of which Miller extensively discusses his life and work.

Jonathan Sacks and Susan Neiman outline their visions for addressing the ethical challenges, both religious and secular, confronting us in the 21st century.

In Moral Clarity : A Guide for Grown-up Idealists, Susan Neiman reclaims the secular moral values of the enlightenment as the mature route to social justice, free from the ideologies and orthodoxies that attract so many. 

In his latest book, Future Tense, Jonathan Sacks claims that religion and morality are inextricable – religion representing the best of what it means to be human.

Is Susan Neiman too idealistic about the possibility of attaining a transcendent morality, independent of religion?  Does Jonathan Sacks exaggerate the role religion plays in moral conduct?

Anticipate a discussion that is both exciting and contentious.

Could vegetarianism be the new kashrut? No need to eat meat to be incisive, funny and brilliant.

Uncovering secrets embedded in their every day lives, these two books were triggered by a chance finding of wartime documents which gave rise to questions surrounding contemporary events.

Rosemary Bailey’s book, Love and War in the French Pyrenees, offers an emotional history underlying the bitter facts of wartime in the Pyrenees and the unspoken secrets of the french Resistance.

Marc Stevens’ Escape, Evasion and Revenge reveals the unknown story of his father, the only German Jew to fight the Nazis as an RAF bomber pilot tracing his repeated captures and astounding escapes until he finally arrives in Canada, leaving his old life, and name behind him.

Rosemary Bailey studied English and Philosophy at Bristol University and worked as a journalist and travel writer, livng for several years in New York before basing herself in France. In 1997 Rosemary and her husband, Barry Miles, bought Corbiac, a ruined Romanesque monastery whch they restored - an experience recounted in Life in a Postcard. This same monastery features in Love and War in the Pyrenees as a place of refuge and escape during the Second World war.

We are delighted to welcome Niall Ferguson, one of those rare historians who is equally brilliant  investigating the past, and analyzing the present. The author of the superb Ascent of Money and The House of Rothschild probes with his customary clarity and acuity the relationships between Jews and finance, and anti-Semitism and financial crises, topics especially pertinent now.

In his internationally acclaimed biography of Clarice Lispector, Why this World, Ben Moser traces the roots of the mysterious Brazilian novelist -this “rare person who looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf”- back to her Ukrainian origins and to the Jewish mystical tradition. Lispector is truly unique in the fascination she exerted, and still exerts, on readers and writers throughout the world. Be prepared to fall under her spell.

Assaf Gavron, the author of CrocAttack, Uri Sheradsky, editor of the monthly sports magazine, Shem Hamisehak, both members of the Israeli writers football team and their counterpart on the English team, Jeremy Gavron, (An Acre of Barren Ground) and Simon Kuper (Why England Lose) are joined by Jerrold Kessel, the author of Goals for Galilee, the story of a tiny Arab soccer club which won the Israeli State Cup to discuss the ways in which football can bring together people, players and audiences of different nationalities, cultures and religions, transcending deep-rooted divides.

Abigail Green’s biography of Sir Moses Montefiore has been hailed by Niall Ferguson as a “masterpiece”. In this talk, she shows how Montefiore’s life illuminates the burning issues of our time: the origins of Zionism and the rise of a global Jewish consciousness, the faltering birth of international human rights, and the making of the modern Middle East.

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Join the author of A Fine Romance, cultural critic David Lehman, as he delves into the American songbook—the compendium of music written from the 1920s to the 1960s that includes Broadway hits, Hollywood musicals and Tin Pan Alley tunes -largely written by Jews.

Revealing the less than subtle jewish subtext in songs such as Guys and Dolls, the cantorial melodies underpinning Gershwin’s tunes and even the removal of religion in songs such as White Christmas and Easter Parade.

The editor of the LRB presents the biography of her remarkable Russian family whose story spans fur trading in the Pale of Settlement, spying on the Soviets in Constantinople to befriending Freud in London. The Eitingons, the result of 29 years of research, re-traces a mysterious and awe-inspiring journey, including that taken by Mary-Kay Wilmers herself.

The horrors of WWII, what led to them and their aftermath, are at the heart of these outstanding novels by German writer Julia Franck (The Blind Side of the Heart), Norman Lebrecht, (The Game of Opposites), and Booker shortlisted Simon Mawer, (The Glass Room). All examine the possibility of forgiveness, the shifting boundaries between good and evil and the enduring legacies of the past.

Two of the most formidably minded polemicists on the literary scene discuss the many possible manifestations of Judaism and whether any of these semitic permutations actually matters.

In the best traditions of historical crime writing, Philip Sington’s The Einstein Girl and Frank Tallis’ Deadly Communion interweave fiction and fact, as well as re-create whole eras. The reader is not only entranced and entertained but takes away an enhanced understanding of the theories of Einstein or Freud. These highly accomplished practitioners of their craft discuss fiction, myth and reality with crime critic Barry Forshaw.

Philipp Manes spent two years in the Czech ghetto of Theresienstadt, where he played a minor role in the Jewish self-administration. He also organised over 500 cultural events, ranging from lectures, to play-readings, poetry competitions and concerts. These helped to maintain the morale and integrity of his fellows’ identity in a way that can now be recognised as offering resistance to the Nazis. In his last months he wrote an extraordinary 986 page account of his experiences, which breaks off in mid-sentence when he and his wife were deported to Auschwitz, where they were among the last people to go into the gas chambers.

The book’s editors Ben Barkow and Klaus Leist will talk about the book and read passages from it. The session will be chaired by Victoria Glendinning.

A Purim Spiel, with a contemporary twist, bringing a little bit of Persia to Bloomsbury, with a backbeat of Iranian rhythms and all hosted by our favourite modern-day Sheherazade, David Schneider.

Unmasking the Book of Esther we’ll be revealing the story behind the story of Purim, hatching all-new conspiracy theories and, in the spirit of the festival, blurring boundaries between good and evil, sacred and profane.

The seriously funny writer, our greatest British Jewish novelist, talks to Peter Florence about literature, comedy, Jewishness and much more. We may not know where this conversation will lead them but you can be sure it will be witty, thought provoking and a fitting finale to JBW 07.

In the 1960s Carmen Callil visited the psychiatrist Anne Darquier and they forged a close bond, tragically broken when Anne committed suicide. Years later, Carmen discovered that Anne’s father was Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, a Nazi collaborator and a con man who had abandoned his daughter at birth. She tells their story in Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family and Fatherland. Carmen Callil talks to a leading historian of France about the man who sent over seventy thousand French Jews to die in Auschwitz and was never brought to justice.

Judith Butler's book, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence is considered her most impassioned and personal book to date. In it she offers a profound appraisal of the post 9/11 world and the reactions which followed, critiquing the responses which followed the attack and suggesting instead that mourning can inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice.

In conversation with her will be filmmaker and writer, Udi Aloni, whose latest film, 'Forgiveness', concerns residents of a psychiatric hospital which is built on the ruins of the Palestinian village Deir Yassin. The site elicits a dialogue of the loss felt on both sides, offering a glimpse of a world where the ghosts of the past can be heard. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek described the film as “maybe the most beautiful, powerful and important film ever made about the tragedies of the region”.

The former children’s laureate presents the awards for the PRIMARY SCHOOLS POETRY PRIZE and the winners read their poems on “Colours”.

Michael then introduces us to Paolo Levi, a legendary violinist who has always refused to play and talk about Mozart until one day he decides to tell his story to a young journalist.Discover this wonderful tale as you are taken on an amazing journey of a story-maker extraordinaire.

Etgar Keret is back with a new collection of short stories. Fast paced and precise, hilarious and off-the-wall, they are also dark, sometimes violent, and often intensely poignant. They are, in short, brilliant. He discusses his very special world with journalist Hephzibah Anderson.

For more than fifty years, Martin Gilbert has been travelling the world in search of people and documents to illuminate his quest for Jewish historical facts and enigmas.

Today he shares some of the untold stories behind his fascinating books.

Come and watch The Pomegranate Puppet Theatre perform their magical Purim show, ‘The Story of Esther’: an all –singing-all -dancing interactive version of the original tale. You can get your face painted and come in your most fabulous fancy dress for a chance to win some great prizes in our Purim costume competition.

In this rare event, the renowned children’s writer and illustrator Judith Kerr talks about her life and work which has delighted and charmed generations of readers.

Her three internationally acclaimed autobiographical novels, including When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, are based on her early wandering years, her adolescence in London during the war, and finally on a brief return to Berlin as a young married woman.

In addition to the trilogy, Judith is also renowned for her family-favourite feline creation, Mog. This enduringly popular character has charmed generations of children and has starred in a series of books.

There is no single history of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are always two narratives. The most prominent example is the event Palestinians mourn as their Nakba – their catastrophic dispersion in 1948 - and which Israelis and Jews around the world celebrate as Israel's victorious War of Independence.

Two conferences of Israeli and Palestinian historians and a book, Shared Histories, have examined these differing perceptions. Three prominent participants in these conferences discuss different aspects of the dual historical narratives and consider how they might be utilized to lead to peace, rather than further conflict.

David Schneider talks to Paul Kriwaczek about his engaging and entertaining, though controversial book on the history of the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Why does he describe Yiddish as a civilisation rather than a culture or language? Why does he start his story with the Roman Empire and end it in the 19th century when Yiddish continued to flourish for at least another century?  What is the legacy of Yiddish and what its future? A strong challenge to traditional thinking about Yiddish, drawing on the author's extensive and eclectic knowledge of the field, the conversation promises to be stimulating and highly entertaining.

Naim Kattan grew up in a multicultural Baghdad as did Marina Benjamin’s grandmother. A violent pogrom shook their world in 1941 and eventually 130, 000 Jews were airlifted out of Iraq and scattered across the globe in the early fifties. The two authors discuss colonial Baghdad, the political forces that shape the country today and the fate of its Jewish diaspora.

Continuing in the long tradition of Jewish women causing trouble Susannah Heschel, Julia Neuberger and Lynne Segal will be exploring the impact of the Women’s Movement on Judaism and vice versa. These three formidable women will be mining the contradictions and inspirations that come with the overlapping territory at the intersections of Feminism and Jewishness which has shaped their own lives as educators, agitators and activists.

In The Seventh Gate, the fourth volume of Richard Zimler’s series, Isaac Zarco, a distant relative of the 16th-century Portuguese kabbalist, becomes convinced by the pact between Hitler and Stalin that an apocalyptic prophesy made by his ancestor is about to come terribly true. Is he mad to believe that by decoding these ancient texts he might be the one to save the world? A love story, tragedy and a tale of ferocious heroism set in 1930s Berlin.

Gabriel Josipovici has been publishing fiction and criticism for close to forty years. Last year saw the publication of a substantial volume of essays, The Singer on the Shore and of a work of fiction, Everything Passes. He will talk to Bryan Cheyette about his life, work and his two most recent books.

Rabbi Louis Jacobs was Anglo-Jewry's greatest scholar.  To mark his passing, a structured reading scheme has been set up in London, Chicago, Jerusalem and on-line at www.readingrabbijacobs.org.  This is a unique opportunity to study and discuss Rabbi Jacob's works with a range of scholars.  The text for this Jewish Book Week meeting will be God, Torah, Israel  - Tradition without Fundamentalism,  in which Rabbi Jacobs distils his approach in an accessible yet profound manner (for more information, visit www.louisjacobs.org).

Michael Rosen's mother told him not to kvetsch, greps at the table or chup his soup. His father told him he was meshugge. His mother told him not to be a shlump. His brother said, 'Don't flick my tukhes with the shmatte!'

Michael emerged from all this with a smile on his face and will celebrate his family in a riotous mix of poetry, song, story, joke, anecdote, and fun with words  -most of which is plucked from his books, thrown up in the air and lands in his mouth in front of your very eyes.

In her latest book to be launched at Book Week, Nora Ephron examines the indignities of ageing with her biting humour, comforting us with the thought that no matter how much our neck sags, our skin wrinkles and our children don’t appreciate us, someone else has been there before you.

She gives us glimpses from her anything-but-glamorous debut as a White House intern during the JFK years to her successful career as novelist, script writer and director. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age.

Whether you are a young fan, a clueless man or a grumpy woman, this session is for you.

Peter Cole presents his anthology, The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, arguably the most powerful body of Jewish poetry written since the Bible. Fusing elements of East and West, Arabic and Hebrew, the particular and the universal, this verse embodies an extraordinary sensuality and intense faith that transcend the limits of language, place, and time. Cole will read from the anthology and also talk about the ways in which this often startling poetry relates to readers today.

Sophie Hannah, the author of the gripping psychological suspense novel, Little Face, shares some secrets of the trade.

The prolific and much loved children’s writer and founder of Barn Owl Books, Ann Jungman explains how to write captivating books and get published.

A cabaret fusion of music, visuals and a selection of live literary performances from some of JBWs most exciting talent including Idit Eshel, Etgar Keret, Sophie Hannah and featuring music from a mystery.

Irreverent and hilarious, Jewtopia parodies dating, JDating, interdating, rabbis, seders, Purim, bar mitzvahs, shofar blowing, other types of blowing, goyim, Asian fixations, synagogue memberships and, most of all, Jewish women and their overbearing mothers. But is it good for the Jews? Jonny Geller will apply his newly devised science, Judology, to their book before the two comedians give us a taste of the show that took the US by storm.

Viewed from the outside, Israel sometimes appears to be a maelstrom of violence, insecurity and religious-secular conflict. But Israel is also a hub of creative energy with its emerging subcultures producing often radical and highly distinctive art in a number of fields. “Postcards from the Unholy Land” discusses the significance of the new Israeli culture with some of its most idiosyncratic and interesting practitioners. What are the implications of the vibrancy of Israeli culture for the Israeli state? Are they a challenge to the status quo or an escape from it?

Olivia Lichtenstein reads and discusses Mrs Zhivago of Queen's Park, her sharp, funny and deliciously entertaining first novel about how to survive being forty, married, and just a little bit bored with your life.

Martin Amis in conversation with author Saul Bellow, who talks about his background and life in America, his work and the influences on it. Interweaving their conversations are readings and dramatisations from some of Bellow's works.

Michele Hanson’s mother Clarice decided that rather than being miserable whilst paying for a care home she could be miserable for free living with her daughter and granddaughter, which she did from the age of 88 until her death, aged 99. Living with Mother charts the very funny but poignant and slow deterioration of Clarice in her role as Faultfinder General, Head Chef and Anxiety Queen. Michele’s daughter Amy also contributed a piece to the book.

Amy Hanson completed an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College and is now writing her first novel.

We look at a great classic: Reuben Sachs, written in 1888: 'This is a novel about women, and Jewish women, about families, and Jewish families, about snobbishness, and Jewish snobbishness.' (Julia Neuberger)

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was perhaps the most significant Jewish theologian of the 20th century. His daughter, Susannah Heschel explores the legacy left both to her and to Jewish life a century after his birth and shares some rare footage of the man who was able to build bridges between prayer and politics. Many will remember the picture of him striding alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., in the protest march at Selma, Alabama. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, in recalling that event, called Heschel "one of the great men of our time."

Antisemitic attacks are on the rise, the Iranian president calls for the eradication of Israel and the war in Lebanon split the diaspora. But Jewish culture everywhere is experiencing a vibrant resurgence and a two state solution seems inevitable. So what exactly is looming on the horizon?

The role of Jews in creating the popular music industry has been widely documented. Less known is the part played by a handful of Jews in the making of classical legends.

Norman Lebrecht, in his new book, introduces the concentration-camp victim who, together with a war criminal, fashioned the foremost classical label; the Orthodox magnate who financed a gay record label; and the man who signed himself God.

At last, the faces behind the record are revealed.

A Palestine Affair
In British-occupied Palestine after WW1, a beleaguered London painter and his American wife witness the murder of an Orthodox Jew. She is drawn into an affair with the British investigating officer. The author talks about this engaging mystery romance.

Mark Lawson is in conversation with Philip Roth, arguably the most powerful voice in modern American fiction. During this frank and provocative interview Roth discusses his fiction since 2000, including his most recent novel, Everyman, the monumental impact of 9/11, and his disillusionment with the Bush administration.

Fed up with the way we are destroying the planet and governments talk without achieving anything? Michael Norton and Hilary Blume will show us how to change the world and try to make it a better place through actions available to each and every individual whether it is going “unshopping”, building a skip sculpture or giving a goat.

Is Jewish prayer an eternal constant or does its role evolve in a contemporary world?

In a recent interview, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained that “prayer was a conversation with the voice within that is also the voice beyond. In prayer books, three times a day, we remind ourselves that God lifts the fallen, heals the sick and asks us to do what He does and be His partner.”

The publication of the new Siddur with translation and commentary by the Chief Rabbi is a landmark moment in Anglo-Jewry.  It could be seen to define the approach to prayer of a generation.  Rabbi Sacks discusses the place of prayer today with Leon Wieseltier, whose celebrated book, Kaddish, is an exhaustive, deeply personal meditation on the obligations and meaning of daily prayer.

“Small dark Glaswegian Jew” as his first BBC interviewer labelled him, today one of the most influential men in British television, Jeremy Isaacs talks about his life in broadcasting and the major changes he witnessed and sometimes instigated.

David Maine conveyed Cain’s anguish in the beautiful Fallen and  Noah’s wife and children’s dismay in the humorous Flood. The Genizah at the House of Shepher is Tamar Yellin’s thriller about a missing biblical codex and the search for the true text of the Bible. They talk about finding their inspiration in the sacred text.

In See Under: Peace (1993) the leading Israeli author, visits the Territories the day after Israel and the PLO signed a peace agreement. He finds optimism, but recognises the huge divide between Palestinian and Israeli aspirations.

This film is shown as a tribute to David’s son Uri, who died last summer in Lebanon.

“If I have to read one more headline,” Dina Rabinovitch writes to a friend, “announcing that the cure for cancer is only years away, I may just scream and scream.” Dina, from a long line of Lithuanian Mitnagdim, grew up in a Judaism of rigorous thinking and demanding scepticism. When diagnosed with breast cancer, she found out that she also comes from a family riddled with cancer. Her book, Take off Your Party Dress, describes the clash of cultures when Jewish mom meets chemotherapy.

The v iolinist, clarinettist, bagpipe player and self-appointed Acting President of the Guild of Funerary Violinists presents his groundbreaking book An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin, a musical form he invented and which he will demonstrate on the day.

‘Between man and citizen there is a scar: the foreigner’ Julia Kristeva

The idea of the ‘foreigner’ or ‘stranger’, provides a nexus for examining the dynamics and tensions of differing cultures in contact which has long been associated with the Jewish people. A foreigner inhabits spaces both inside and out, allowing a dual perspective and it is this prerogative of exile and displacement which is both enlightening and alienating. Both Julia Kristeva and Eva Hoffman have explored the role of a foreigner or stranger within society and also within the individual.

What kind of additional perspective does displacement afford the individual? How are we strangers to ourselves? Is the Jew an eternal foreigner? And can foreigners ever be happy?

In The Illusion of Return, his first novel in English, Samir El-Youssef explores the themes of memory, personal and collective tragedy. Comedy seems to be the only way to survive the absurdity of violence and politics. He discusses this and much more with Linda Grant.

Suburban Shaman: Tales from Medicine's Front Line
'To be a good doctor you have to be a compassionate chameleon, a shape shifter - a shaman.' writes Cecil Helman after 27 years as a family practitioner in North London interlaced with training and research as a medical anthropologist. A different and humane look on medicine as it should be.

A riveting half hour lecture given by Aharon Appelfeld at Cambridge University in 2003 in which he discusses the writing of Holocaust survivors’ testimonies.

Extraordinarily, Roman Halter made it out of the Lodz ghetto, survived Auschwitz and endured the Dresden bombing, before escaping to England.

Peter Lantos journeyed from Hungary to Bergen-Belsen where his father died. After liberation, he endured Communist oppression in Budapest.

They reveal how they survived and built successful and happy lives.

Suite française was the lost masterpiece rediscovered a few years ago by the Irene Nemirovsky’s daughter. A very rare view of France at war by a great writer tragically assassinated by the Nazis.

Martin Amis talks to Christopher Hitchens about Saul Bellow with whom he developed an intimate friendship, about the role of the writer as intellectual, the threat of political correctness to the comic novel, Islam, Israel and “horrorism”.

Andrew Miller’s great grand-parents emigrated from Eastern Europe to the East End of London. In The Earl of Petticoat Lane, he tells the amazing story of his grandfather, from barrow boy to high society. In his autobiography, A Home from Home: from Immigrant Boy to English Man, George Alagiah, looks back on his own journey.

Both authors compare immigrant experiences and discuss whether the once inclusive British society is in danger of becoming apartheid UK.

Nava Semel discusses writing about the children of Holocaust survivors in search of an Israeli identity. She gives her personal view on the pain and the hope, on loss and the power of survival through the eyes of the daughter of new immigrants.

Semel also talks about her latest novel And the Rat Laughed in which the protagonist battles with her memory as a hidden, abused child and her long journey towards emotional freedom.

Victoria Glendinning talks to Anne Sebba about Leonard Woolf, exploring his career as a writer and political thinker, his devotion to his wife Virginia and his complicated relationship with his Jewishness. Henry Goodman reads passages from Woolf’s fiction and non fiction, some of it unpublished today.

Two young and brilliant graphic artists discuss with Paul Gravett the importance of their Jewish roots. Funny, irreverent and bold, Joann Sfar pays homage to both his

Ashkenazi mother and his Sephardi father, with Klezmer, following the difficult life of musicians in Eastern Europe and The Rabbi’s Cat set in Algeria at a time when Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together.

JT Waldman brought two dreams together: do a graphic novel and understand his religion better. Seven years later, having learnt Hebrew, studied the rabbinic texts and explored oriental art, he produced the Megillat Esther, a stunning graphic novel with a twist, incorporating both Hebrew and English and engaging in a new form of Midrash.

In The Book of Exodus, Vivien Goldman takes in the history of Bob and the biblical roots of the Exodus story, as central to the Rastafarian as it is to the Jews. Early Rastafarian preachers even taught that the Rastas were the original Israelites – “Go Down Moses” is one of the most widely recognised of the slave spirituals and the injunction against hair-cutting is the origin of both dreadlocks and peyot.

An angry bathtub fairy, a stinky old man, chocolates made by dolphins and lemon meringue pie!All in this zany, off-the-wall new series from stand-up comedian Andy Stanton
 
Andy Stanton’s You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum is the first in a series of fantastic nonsensical books, which evoke memories of Roald Dahl and Edward Lear. His
characters are whimsical, hideous, beastly, ridiculous but outrageously funny.
 

The two great Argentinian writers talk about life as seen from the New World, longings for the Old World, 1920s Buenos Aires, Jewish gauchos, identity and wherever their boundless curiosity takes them.

Experience Jewish Bloomsbury. Contextualising Leonard Woolf this walking tour takes you through the heartland of the Bloomsbury Circle where you can discover the haunts of Benjamin Disraeli, Gertrude Stein, Karl Marx, Lord Duveen and many other Jewish intellectuals who frequented the old British Library and the British Museum. Find out about the role of Jews in the foundation of University College London and the stars who rose to fame at the Slade School of Art such as David Bomberg, Mark Gertler and the great poet Isaac Rosenberg.

Should everything be allowed in the name of free speech? How do we react to offensive cartoons? Can we make fun of the Holocaust? Are mothers sacred? Does criticizing Israel necessarily make you a self-hating Jew? Will comedy as a genre survive our politically correct and fearful age? These are some of the questions our witty and provocative panel will address.

‘Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be  -the unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future’ Janusz Korczak

Doctor, writer, educator, philosopher, great humanist and pioneer for the rights of the child, Janusz Korczak was an extraordinary figure. He chose to accompany the 200 orphans he looked after, out of the Warsaw ghetto to the train station and finally, the gas chambers of Treblinka.

The Attack is the second novel in a trilogy in which Khadra sets out to describe the contemporary Middle East, in particular the galvanising power of Islamic fundamentalism. Set in Israel, it tells the story of a successful Arab-Israeli surgeon suddenly confronted by the shocking news that his wife has blown herself up in a crowded restaurant. In his first UK appearance since the publication of The Attack, he discusses terrorism, the Western confusion about the Arab world and, ultimately, the power of literature.

“In order to translate the Bible, you have to do philological spade work. That is sort of like detective work.”

“After I was well into my work, I realized that I was simultaneously carrying out two great love affairs: my love affair with the Hebrew language and my love affair with the English language.”

-Robert Alter

After WW2, Western democracies united in trying to create a new world order protecting human rights, preventing wars and promoting free trade. Philippe Sands in Lawless World has shown how the US –and the UK- have repeatedly broken those rules. In Web of Deceit Barry Lando demonstrates the cynicism and greed driving foreign intervention in Iraq since it was founded and beyond the reign of Saddam: an excellent illustration of Philippe Sands’ thesis. Among other things, they will discuss what was omitted from Saddam’s trial and the key role of his foreign co-conspirators.

Both historians go back to 70 AD and the destruction of the Second Temple. Martin Goodman considers the reasons for this brutal and extraordinary conflict between two civilizations whilst Sean Kingsley sets on the trail of the fabulous treasure seized by the Romans and suggests its possible whereabouts today.

Jewish Book Week is proud to open the 2007 festival by bringing together three of today’s most admired authorities on the Bible.

The majestic translations of the distinguished Hebrew scholar Robert Alter are enhanced by his literary commentaries which illuminate the Bible in its many dimensions. Avivah Zornberg combines literary insights with theological wisdom derived from a lifelong immersion in rabbinic tradition.

Under Yair Zakovitch’s expert guidance, they explore Genesis 19:24, the birth of Jacob and Esau, and discuss its very contrasting possible interpretations.

They are shared by all the religions of the Book but how resonant are the Ten Commandments in our lives today? Even such apparently obvious ones like thou shalt not kill are being questioned by the supporters of euthanasia.

Our glittering panel of writers discuss the relevance of the Ten Commandments today, propose their own commandments and question the need for a common ethical backbone for the 21st century.

Who better than a thriller writer to explore the sixth commandment? Sara Paretsky launches her new book Fire Sale, which takes V I Warshawski – one of the most complex, compelling characters in modern crime fiction – back to the neighbourhood where she grew up, a place she would rather never have returned to. One of the world’s leading crime writers discusses with Maxim Jakubowski a career dependent on unnatural deaths.

Judith Rotem’s journey took her from an Orthodox Hungarian lifestyle, through a concentration camp as a baby, to life on an Israeli moshav and later in the religious town Bnei-Brak. Struggling with life as an Orthodox Jew, she finally divorced her husband and left the community along with her seven children. Her writing focuses on the world she abandoned, and on the difficult condition of Haredi women.

“Nothing has happened since Auschwitz that could reverse or refute Auschwitz. In my writingsthe Holocaust could never be present in the past tense.”

The Hungarian 2004 Nobel Prize winner comes to London on a very rare visit to talk about his work, including Fatelessness, the recently retranslated novel based on his experience as a 14-year-old trying to make sense of the utmost horror and absurdity of life in the death camps and the total lack of understanding that met the survivors. He discusses his life, his writing and antisemitism with Evi Blaikie, a Hungarian hidden child who miraculously escaped the Holocaust, and only belatedly realised that she too was a victim.

Dora B and her eight year old daughter were expelled for vagrancy from France to Israel. Convinced that she was the victim of a conspiracy, Dora gradually lost her grasp on the world. Josiane tells us the struggle to come to terms with her mother's illness and gives us a portrait of an unusual woman. Her story is full of warmth, humour and heartbreak.

In Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper, Laurel Leff examines the many decisions that were made along the chain-of-command of the New York Times that ultimately resulted in minimising, misunderstanding and diluting the reporting of the Holocaust. She describes how journalists in New York, London, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Bucharest and Jerusalem reacted to news as it reached their bureaus. Leff, along with Arthur Neslen who was until recently the London correspondent for Al-Jazeera and their only Jewish journalist, grapple with the question of how journalists understand and evaluate horrific unprecedented events.

Once there was a boy his parents tried to protect.

Once he escaped to find them.

Once story telling helped him survive.

Morris Gleitzman tells the wonderful story of a boy who knew the power of stories.

The wonderfully witty writer and broadcaster, born in Copenhagen, tells the story of her novel inspired by the true acts of courage of the Danish population united in saving its Jewish population from the Nazis

Isabel Kershner presents a riveting exploration of the impact of Israel's controversial security barrier. She offers rich and insightful portraits of the people and places along the Wall's route and beyond.

Exploring the societies, personalities and psyches on both sides of the divide, she lays bare the tragedies and tough realities that first gave rise to the barrier, as well as the often bitter, ironic, even amusing consequences of its creation. She tries to give a non-partisan picture and will be happy to engage with the audience and leave much time for discussion.

At the intersection of literature and art, the blending of high satire and low caricature, the graphic novel is an elusive genre. Propelled to new heights by Art Spiegelman, the form has many proponents who explore a range of Jewish preoccupations from the sublime to the horrific. Is it the ultimate in trivialisation or the ultimate in mediation?

The panel includes experts in the field; Paul Gravett, Corinne Pearlman and Marion Baraitser who will be launching Home Number One, a gripping graphic novel for teens featuring a young heroine from the year 2020 who travels through time to meet her distant cousins in Theresienstadt, 1944.

Fatelessness, the title of Imre Kertesz’s novel, refers to what he calls “the dreary trap of linearity”. Having to accept one event after the other, powerlessly, is what befalls Georgy, a fourteen year old boy confronted with his Jewishness, the camps and their aftermath.

In The Orientalist, Tom Reiss tells the remarkable tale of Kurban Said, aka Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew with a passion for the Arab world and bestselling author of Ali and Nino, a captivating love story set in Azerbaijan. For five years, Reiss tracked Said’s protean identity from a wealthy Jewish childhood in glamorous Baku to a romantic adolescence in Persia on the run from the Bolsheviks, and an exile in Berlin as self proclaimed Muslim prince. Reiss also discusses Leopold Weiss, another Jew who converted and who became one of the founding fathers of Pakistan.

SESSION ONE : Suspense

Jonathan Freedland presents Sam Bourne, the author of a new exciting thriller set in the New York Jewish community. Discover who is hiding behindthis mysterious name. You won’t be disappointed!

Moderated by award-winning journalist, writer and broadcaster Jay Rayner.

SESSION TWO : Don't Tell Me Miracles Can't Happen!

“I have seen the end of Apartheid and witnessed modern Israel rising from the ashes of the Holocaust. Don’t tell me miracles can’t happen”. So concludes Hirsh Goodman at the end of his autobiography.

Both Hirsh Goodman and Jonathan Kaplan grew up in South Africa and fled apartheid.

Goodman went to Israel in search of his paradise. His work as a journalist in constant dialogue with Israel’s leaders helped him closely follow the evolution of the country. He saw his son leave the country after his military service in the West Bank to move to the new South Africa.

Kaplan travelled the world to work for medical charities in areas of conflict – Burma, Eritrea, Angola, Baghdad – experiencing riots, tropical fevers and political upheavals.

They discuss what kept them going, the price they paid and the challenge of retaining their ideals.

Poet and translator Fiona Sampson chairs this session which leads us into the worlds of two very special poets. Amir Or combines the mysteries of the spirit with the joys of the flesh, curious about mythology while carefully examining the Hebrew language.

Ted Hughes considered Elaine Feinstein 'an extraordinarily fine poet. She has a sinewy, tenacious way of penetrating and exploring her subject that seems to me unique. There is nothing hit or miss, nothing for effect, nothing false. Reading her poems one feels cleansed and sharpened.'

Radio 4 listeners recently voted Karl Marx the greatest philosopher of all time – a decision with which historian Eric Hobsbawm would not disagree. He discusses here Marx’s stature and legacy with Jacques Attali, first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the institution created to ease the transition to capitalism of East European countries. Attali has just published a book explaining why Marx was a visionary prophet and “one of the giants of modern thought.”

Mark Leonard believes in Europe with a faith rarely seen in Britain. In Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century he challenges us to regard the European Union not as a tangle of bureaucracy but as a revolutionary model for the future and to remember that, founded to protect us against war, it is now key to the spread of democracy.

Matches is the Israel Defence Force codename for a soldier: someone who strikes, burns and dies. Alan Kaufman, has written a moving novel based on his experiences which comes recommended by David Mamet and Amos Oz.

In his play What we did to Weinstein, Ryan Craig features a British born Jew in the Israeli army.

How can literature render the experience? How can one express the camaraderie but also the horror and the doubts without betraying the ideals? How has the representation of the Israeli soldier evolved with the changing role of the army?

Five Amber Beads Richard Arnonowitz-Mercer, poet and Head of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art at Bloomsbury Auctions, presents his debut novel. The narrator investigates the provenance of art that might have been looted during the war, explores his family’s past through the diary his uncle kept in the camps, and helps an amnesiac old man to discover who he is.

The multi-talented author talks about her return to the countries of Turkey, Lebanon and Morocco in search of old and new recipes, and to find out how cooking has evolved since the 1960s. She pays tribute to the different culinary histories and contemporary cookery of these countries, and creates a passionate and evocative world of stories, memories and delicious food.

Carl and Leonie Gombrich remember their grandfather, the legendary Ernst Gombrich, author of the best selling art book of all time, the Story of Art. His Little History of the World, written for children in 1935, was recently published for the first time in the UK. Gombrich begins the book by acknowledging that history is first of all a story, the

transmission of experience between generations.

Leonie discusses his legacy with Robert Hughes who recently described Gombrich’s writing as unsurpassed and Carl reads some extracts. As Peter Conradi wrote:

“Gombrich remains a tribal elder. He is, if Leonie consents to share him everybody’s grandfather.”

In the last 30 years, Professor Khalili has assembled 20,000 objects documenting much of the artistic production of the Islamic lands over a period of some 1400 years. The collection was formed according to the criteria by which Muslims themselves judge their art and gives a central place to the art of calligraphy.

The Khalili Collection's holdings of manuscripts of the Holy Qur'an are the first to have been assembled systematically in order to illustrate the whole history of Qur'an production, both in terms of timespan and geographical range - from the 8th century AD to the 20th century, and from Morocco to China.

The ninth commandment –Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour – features large in the dialogue between Rabbi David Rosen and evangelical Christian preacher RT Kendall in their exchange of letters, TheChristian and the Pharisee. It cuts to the heart of all that divides the two religions, despite the shared moral heritage. Lord Carey, who wrote an introduction to the book, discusses these differences with David Rosen in a very special public encounter between two highly respected religious thinkers who strive at helping Jews and Christians understand each other better.

Nowhere's Child

A lawyer specialising in criminal legal aidwork, Francesca Weisman is the new name to watch in British crime fiction. Her first book about a young autistic boy growing up with his single mother, uncovering the mystery of his origins, was hailed as “an ambitious and accomplished debut” by The Observer.

In his book, Occidentalism, Ian Buruma shows that the dehumanising picture of the West painted by its enemies is not a new phenomenon, though it cannot be attributed solely to either the right or left, nor to an Islamic source.

Buruma discusses with authors Ziauddin Sardar and Jon Ronson how these longstanding stereotypes fuel the hatred at the heart of movements such as Al Qaeda. They also explore the links between anti-American, anti- Western and antisemitic ideas.

Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, is considered one of the unsung geniuses of the twentieth century. Antony Beevor’s fascination with Grossman was triggered whilst researching his masterly book on Stalingrad. It led him to edit A Writer atWar, a compilation of the great novelist’s astonishing wartime notebooks and journalism.

Is Shalom Auslander taking the name of God in vain when imagining Him as a big chicken? Is Naomi Alderman’s story of a lesbian relationship in Hendon blasphemous?

Brought up as an orthodox Jew in New York, Shalom Auslander has produced a collection of short stories, Beware of God, which is viciously funny and irreverent.

Naomi Alderman’s debut novel Disobedience is about a young woman who has turned her back on her father – a respected rabbi – and his ultraconservative community who conceal their lack of humanity behind a shroud of tradition.

Are these two books dangerously iconoclastic or part of a noble tradition of transgressive Jewish writing?

Either Side of Winter

Set over the course of a year in Manhattan, four stories follow a group of characters whose lives are inextricably linked by circumstance, community and a desire to love and be loved. Touched by wry humour and shades of Manhattan moods as we pass through the seasons, the book captures a city in microcosm through a series of remarkable portraits.

Schools are invited to bring their pupils to meet Morris Gleitzman who talks about storytelling, Joe Craig, exciting new author of a thriller that raises questions of ethics, politics and genetics and take part in a session on the graphic novel with Marion Baraitser.

“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open to the immigration of Jews from all countries of their dispersion; will promote the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew Prophets; will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be ready to cooperate with the organs and representatives of the United Nations in the implementation of the Resolution of the Assembly of November 29, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the Economic Union over the whole of Palestine.

We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building of its State and to admit Israel into the family of nations.

In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, with full and equal citizenship and due representation in its bodies and institutions - provisional or permanent.

We offer peace and unity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.

Our call goes out to the Jewish people all over the world to rally to our side in the task of immigration and development and to stand by us in the great struggle for the fulfilment of the dream of generations - the redemption of Israel.

With trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hand to this Declaration, at this Session of the Provisional State Council, in the city of Tel Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the fifth of Iyar, 5708, the fourteenth day of May, 1948. “

Three major Israeli thinkers discuss the original text of the 1948 Declaration and its resonance today.

Imagine that Peter, Anne Frank’s companion in hiding, had survived the war and tried to rebuild a new life in the US. Ellen Feldman, in her gripping novel, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, explores the impossibility of severing the past.

In Lisa Appignanesi’s The Memory Man, an old man is forced to remember his past by a trip to Vienna, a city he had not seen since fleeing the Nazis as a child.

The two authors will discuss the themes of invented lives and repressed or erased memories.

Celebrating 350 years of Jewish life in England, we embark on an oral history project involving families from across the Jewish community. Spoken word poet Leah Thorn facilitates a workshop in which each family (in inter-generational groups of 2-3) are invited to bring in a photograph from their family album which will elicit a joint poem. This session allows each family member to explore their connection with the past and create a lyrical 'Living Photograph'.

Mordecai Richler is one of Canada’s best known writers. His satirical fiction includes Saint Urbain’s Horseman and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. For Jewish Book Week, his daughters discuss the family man behind the legend. In her two novels so far, Emma Richler depicts a family made up of loving and quirky siblings, a beautiful and intelligent mother, and a rambunctious father figure, recalling a childhood of mythic proportions. Martha Richler has a Masters in Art History and is now a cartoonist, with a wit all her own. They look back on life, with childhood friend Carlo Gebler.

In an illustrated talk based on his book on Jaffa, Adam Le Bor tells us the stories of six families from 1920 to today: the Christian Arab car-dealer; the Jewish coffee-and-spice merchant; the Palestinian exile who tried to bring modern business methods to the Arafat era, and the Jewish schoolgirl who befriended an Arab drug dealer.

City of Oranges shows us in Jaffa, a microcosm of the Israeli experience of the Twentieth Century, a nation of divergent narratives of people striving to make a life in a country torn by conflict.

Shas is the movement which changed fundamentally the relationship between religion, ethnicity and politics by leading a religious and ethnic revival among Israel's North African and Middle Eastern Jews. Led, astonishingly, by Sephardi Rabbis trained in ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi yeshivas, it has brought about a mass religious and ethnic revival and shaken the political establishment, provoking hate, fear and undying loyalty in equal measure.

Linda Grant presents Israel as you have never seen it before.

From the bohemian world of the Tel Aviv intellectual scene to the seedy underbelly of mob bosses; encountering teenage soldiers, Iraqi shopkeepers and Russian scientists along the way. The People on the Street, the culmination of years of journalism, essay writing and countless interviews, is the very personal account of Linda Grant’s relationship with the country. Beginning from one block of a Tel Aviv street, it is the assertion of the individual and the humane over slogans and rhetoric.

Jewish Book Week presents an opportunity to take part in a reading group. Places are limited to 20 people and must be booked in advance. Please read the book before the session.

Published in 1892, Israel Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto became the first Anglo-Jewish bestseller. It documents, with affectionate honesty and wryness of humour, the lives ofimmigrant Jews.

From Abraham, journeying from one land in search of another, to modern travellers, Jews have traversed countries and continents.

Jeremy Leigh explores Jewish travel writing from sources as divergent as the Bible to

Sholem Aleichem and Joseph Roth. He also talks of his own amazing discoveries in

unexpected parts of the world.

“In a mental climate such as this, the very act of writing a story or a poem - even if you're not at that moment writing about "the situation" - instantly becomes a tiny act of protest, of defiance; an act of personal definition within a reality that threatens to wipe us out…

…When we write here we manage to experience the almost forgotten flexibility of a change of perspective; of looking at reality from somebody else's eyes, sometimes even the eyes of our enemy”. David Grossman March, 2005

Internationally acclaimed writer David Grossman has stressed the urgency of ‘knowing the other from within’ in order to fight the clichés and prejudice rife within any conflict. The Israeli writer has made injustice one ofhis central themes, tirelessly calling for the end of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state.

Here he tells us of the challenge of living on the fault line; writing tomorrow’s literary classics whilst fighting today’s battles.