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Intersections: Shared Histories, Different Journeys

Sunday August 2, 2026 — 2:45 pm
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General Admission: $30

Save with a Festival Pass!

Save with a Festival Pass!

Buy a ‘Festival Sunday’ full day pass and get 9 sessions for the price of 5. 

Festival Passes

Merav Fima, Ayelet Tsabari, Sanjiva Wijesinha – moderator Marcelo Maghidman

From the Middle East to the Americas, Europe and the Orient, Jewish communities have developed distinct traditions while remaining connected through history and time. Bringing together Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi and non-Jewish perspectives, this conversation explores the diversity of Jewish cultures and how this manifests in the stories we tell. What unites us despite our differences, how do others perceive us, and how do we perceive ourselves?

Artists

  • Dr Merav Fima

    Dr. Merav Fima is the author of the acclaimed short story collection Late Blossoms (Vine Leaves Press, October 2025) and of the forthcoming Sephardic migration novel The Rose of Thirteen Petals and the Pomegranate Tree (Running Wild Press, 2027 – shortlisted for the Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts). A writer, translator, and literary scholar based in Melbourne, Australia, she holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Monash University and her award-winning short fiction has appeared in anthologies and literary journals worldwide.

  • Ayelet Tsabari

    Ayelet Tsabari is the author of Songs for the Brokenhearted, winner of a National Jewish Book Award for fiction and a Canadian Jewish Literary Award for fiction. Her memoir, The Art of Leaving, won a Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir, and an Apple Books and Kirkus Review Best Book of 2019. Her first book, The Best Place on Earth, winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.

  • Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha

    Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha MBBS (Ceylon) MSc (Oxford) FRCS FACS FRACGP is a family physician, acclaimed author, medical journalist, inveterate traveller, and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He has been an army officer in Sri Lanka and Australia, a paediatric surgeon, a family physician and a professor at Monash University. In 1990 he was a member of UNESCO’s Maritime Silk Route Expedition that sailed from Venice to Osaka. He is the author of several books including Health for Busy People, Live Happily Ever After, and Stories of the Silk Roads.

  • Dr Marcelo Maghidman

    Brazilian-born and fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hebrew, Dr Marcelo Maghidman has been an academic, consultant and counsellor for over 20 years. He has published six books in the fields of Philosophy and Education, and is currently working on his first novel. Marcelo has a special interest in ageing, drug and alcohol, and counselling. He is course coordinator, unit co-coordinator, senior lecturer and researcher in the Social Work Department, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University.