Join Tali Lavi in conversation with Eleanor Reissa, Dr. Leah Kaminsky and Professor Rebecca Margolis as they speak of the power of Yiddish in representing the Ashkenazi Jewish experience in new fiction, television and film. What happens when today’s artists employ Yiddish in their work? This session will draw upon the mysterious and the uncanny in reimagining Jewish pasts. Come prepared for the unexpected to occur.
Event Topic: Jewish Identity & Culture
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Writing as a Jew: A practical workshop
Creative writing that draws on our various identities has been flourishing in recent decades. We can write as women, as queer people or migrants, and so on. But what specifically does it mean to be writing as a Jew, especially in the current wake of widespread antisemitism where our identity has been systematically devalued? This workshop will explore what writing as a Jew might mean to different participants and offer various starting points and strategies to engage with Jewishness in our works in ways that are meaningful both to us and to non-Jewish audiences. We’ll do this through a combination of theory, discussion and practical exercises.
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On Being Jewish
Michael Gawenda’s arresting memoir, My Life as a Jew, preceded October 7 yet eerily prophesied the difficult questions that confront Jews today, in terms of identity, place and time. Hear Gawenda as he cuts to the core of what it is to be a Jew, then and now, in a heartfelt, honest conversation with former colleague and fellow journalist, James Button.
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SYDNEY EVENT: Eleanor Reissa in conversation with Scott Whitmont
A very special in-conversation event starring sensational New York playwright, director, songstress, actress, and author Eleanor Reissa with our very own man-about-books, Scott Whitmont.
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Global Conversations: Hadley Freeman & Irris Makler discuss ‘Blindness: October 7 and the Left’
In her Jewish Quarterly essay ‘Blindness’,Hadley Freeman addresses a most perplexing phenomenon that has arisen out of the Gaza war, rearing its head immediately after October 7: the exponential rise in antisemitism on a world stage. This has been all the more shocking as it has been most evidently propagated within the political left, taking many by surprise.
In this Global Conversation, join Hadley in conversation with foreign correspondent Irris Makler for an examination of the equivocations, contortions and hypocrisy displayed by elements of the left across the political, media, arts and higher education sectors.
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Writing Lives: Katia Ariel on ‘The Swift Dark Tide’
Katia Ariel discusses her 2024 Stella shortlisted sensation, ‘The Swift Dark Tide’, in conversation with playwright and theatre producer, Jessica Bellamy. Ariel’s memoir deftly flows between journal entry and reminiscences of a childhood in Odessa, emigration to Australia, a happy family life, and the urgency and turmoil of a same-sex love affair. The depth and honesty of this ‘Writing Lives’ is both disarming and profound.
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Global Conversations: Ben Judah & Tali Lavi Discuss ‘Ivrit: The Language That Makes a People’
When award-winning writer, Ben Judah, embarked on a pandemic-fuelled mission to learn Hebrew, he did not anticipate the immensely personal internal shift that would occur in him. With Hebrew came a deepening of Jewish identity, of connection to religion and culture. To ancestry and community.
It also led him to deep reflection on crucial role of modern Hebrew in defining and reshaping the Jewish people. In this ground-breaking essay featured in the latest edition of the Jewish Quarterly, Judah delves into the remarkable evolution and revival of Hebrew – a language whose trajectory charts the recent history of the Jewish people.
Judah will speak with critic and writer Tali Lavi about his experience of longing for and learning the language, and of his belief in Hebrew as the missing connection between Israel and the Diaspora.
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David Baddiel in Conversation with Alice Zaslavsky
MJBW is thrilled to partner with the Shalom Sydney Jewish Writers Festival 2023 to bring you the inimitable David Baddiel — British comedian, screenwriter, television presenter and author of the bestselling Jews Don’t Count and his hot-off-the-press polemic, The God Desire.
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An evening with Jonathan Seidler
Melbourne Jewish Book Week is opening their Schools Program to the public for one special evening.
Join Chanie Stock, Wellbeing Coordinator at The King David School in conversation with Jonathan Seidler, author and freelance journalist, as he discusses his memoir ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’. A deeply personal account of family, love and the power of music. The discussion will address issues of mental health and family trauma / suicide.
Tickets are free for school-age students.
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Book Chat: Lee Kofman on ‘The Writer Laid Bare’
In this wide-ranging Book Chat, author Lee Kofman discusses the inspiration behind The Writer Laid Bare — a work that is both reflective memoir and practical guide aimed at writers and deep readers. She shares her love of Chekhov, Ferrante and Knausgård, and her theory of writers as ‘builders or renovators’.