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In this section we'll keep you up to date with developments for Jewish Book Week 2006 and other relevant news. We'll also review some of the books featured at the coming festival.
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EVENTS
Do let us know of your literary events at Geraldine@jewishbookweek.com and
we’ll post them on our website.
Sunday 10 December 2006, 3.30pm & 7 for 7.30pm
Two screenings of Wajda’s film on Korczak
The Spiro Ark
25-26 Enford Street, London, W1H 1DW
 Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit) – Jewish doctor and unique educator found his tragic death when on 6th August 1942 he and all the children he was educating in the Jewish orphanage were taken to Treblinka.
Korczak and his children are not only symbols of the senseless inhumanity of murdering the innocent and the best of human beings. Korczak was an educator whose ideas of how to bring up children were far ahead of his time.
Wajda the foremost Polish film maker argues that film makers have a duty to leave their audience with something more and this film certainly does it.
As to the end of Wajda’s film he said: “Art has to stop short of certain facts, has to look for other possibilities. It seems to me that it is beautiful that when we do feel abhorred by the horrific truth that children were gassed, we create a legend that the children go, somewhere into some better world”.
The film ends as the deportation order is signed, the liquidation of the Ghetto begins and with a flag bearing the Star of David over their heads the children, together with Dr Korczak enter the cattle-car singing as if on a way to an outing. As we know the truth hits us in a most powerful way.
£7 / £5 (concession for full time students and unemployed)
For information and bookings: Tel. 020 7723 9991, Fax 020 7723 8191 Email education@spiroark.org
Tuesday, 2 January – Saturday, 27 January, 2007
IWITNESS by Joshua Sobol
Finborough Theatre
The Finborough, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
The multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre’s new year opens with the UK premiere of a new play by Israel’s greatest living playwright Joshua Sobol, the award-winning author of Ghetto, on January 2 (Press Night – January 4) for a four week run.
In 1943, an Austrian farmer named Franz Jägerstätter was beheaded for refusing to wear a Nazi uniform and serve in the army of the Third Reich. IWitness, based on that true story, is set during Jägerstätter 's final day in prison, where his friends and loved ones come to plead with him to abandon his principles to save his life. Jägerstätter remains one of the leading Christian martyr’s of the 20th century. The Priest who was with him when he was executed wrote "I can say with certainty that this simple man is the only saint I have ever met in my lifetime."
IWitness was written in a period of awakening for the conscientious objectors movement in Israel, following years of Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories. Joshua Sobol says: “IWitness played for six months at the Cameri in Israel with full houses; nobody was fooled that it was just about conscientious objection during the Second World War.”
Playwright Joshua Sobol was born in Tel Aviv in 1939. His first play was performed in 1971 by the Municipal Theatre in Haifa, where Sobol was also Artistic Director until he resigned over the widespread protests across Israel at the performance of his play The Jerusalem Syndrome. His plays have been seen throughout the Middle East, Europe and North America. He is best known to British audiences for his play Ghetto, seen at the National Theatre, and winner of the 1989 Evening Standard Award and the Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play of the Year, and was also nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Play.
Exciting young Israeli Director Michael Ronen has directed film and theatre in Israel including working with Kathryn Hunter on a workshop of King Lear at the Jerusalem Stage Centre.
Mel Raido’s credits includes Fireface (Royal Court), Cape High (National Theatre Studio) and Jesus in Corpus Christi (Theatre 28). Leah Muller was nominated for an Oliver Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her performance as the Stepdaughter in the Young Vic’s Six Characters in Search of An Author. Lucinda Millward has just graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she played Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. Natalie Radmall-Quirke credits include Jane Eyre (Gate, Dublin). Richard Atwill and Jonathan Bryan have both just graduated from LAMDA.
The Press on Previous Productions of IWitness
“When the play was first performed in Tel Aviv in 2002, it was met by near riots” Jewish Journal
“A gripping, emotional parable about World War II…But since the production is being presented here during a controversial war, one senses that the creators are pointing accusatory fingers at the audience -- or, at least, those who disagree with current administration policies and yet avoid making waves” Theatermania on the LA production
“An impressive evening about the power of saying no.” Austria.org on the Vienna production
PRESS NIGHT: THURSDAY, 4 JANUARY 2007 AT 7.30PM
PHOTOCALL: TUESDAY, 2 JANUARY 2006 AT 1PM-1.30PM
Box Office 0870 4000 838 www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Tuesday to Saturday Evenings at 7.30pm. Saturday and Sunday Matinees at 3.30pm.
Tickets £12, £9 concessions. Tuesday Evenings £8 all seats. Saturday evenings £12 all seats.
Previews (2 and 3 January) £8 all seats.
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