http://www.jewishbookweek.com/ Jewish Book Week 2007 en-us Copyright 2007 Jewish Book Week http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307j.php Manuel Hassassian, Benjamin Pogrund, Paul Scham, Chair: Colin Shindler. 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 ñ their catastrophic dispersion in 1948 - and which Israelis and Jews around the world celebrate as Israel's victorious War of Independence. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307ba.php Michael Rosen is a writer, broadcaster, poet and performer. He is the author of 140 books. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307o.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/280207e.php Anthony Julius, Leon Wieseltier, Chair: Jonathan Freedland. 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? http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/010307b.php Michele and Amy Hanson, Chair: Irma Kurtz. 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307f.php Marina Benjamin, Naim Kattan, Chair: Linda Dagoor. 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307n.php 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". http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307b.php This is a unique opportunity to study and discuss Rabbi Jacob's works with a range of scholars. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307i.php Michael 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307h.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307k.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/250207m.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/260207cb.php Dr Risa Domb, who died in January, was the longest serving member of the Jewish Book Council and an inspirational and much loved colleague. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/030307.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307l.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307d.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307e.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/280207d.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307m.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/250207b.php Martin Goodman and Sean Kingsley 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/260207f.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/250207h.php The Argentinian writer talks about life as seen from the New World, longings for the Old World, 1920s Buenos Aires, Jewish gauchos, literature and films. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/260207b.php Extraordinarily, Roman Halter made it out of the Lodz ghetto, survived Auschwitz and endured the Dresden bombing, before finally escaping to England. Peter Lantos journeyed from Hungary to Bergen-Belsen where his father died. After liberation, he endured Communist oppression in Budapest. They both reveal how they survived and built successful and happy lives. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/040307c.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/270207f.php 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." http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/020307c.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/250207e.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/270207e.php "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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/250207o.php 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". http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/240207.php 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. All three give and discuss their very contrasting possible interpretations. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/260207e.php In The Illusion of Return, his first novel in English, Samir El-Youssef explores the themes of memory and 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/270207d.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/250207k.php Victoria Glendinning talks to Anne Sebba about Leonard Woolf, exploring his career as a writer, novelist 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/010307e.php 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? http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/010307f.php We bring you some of the hottest Jewish talent on the comedy circuit for an hour of laughs, discussion and kvetching. Jonny Geller asks whether humour is good for the Jews. We also have Canadian comic Judy Batalion, multi-talented Penelope Solomon, everybody's favourite UK-born Borshtbelt entertainer, Sol Bernstein, and dazzling Adam Bloom. This will be a night to remember. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/010307g.php 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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/270207a.php "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. http://www.jewishbookweek.com/2007/280207f.php 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."