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: Literature & Writing
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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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Mark Raphael Baker: His Literary and Intellectual Legacy
Mark Raphael Baker was a Holocaust scholar, an inspiring teacher and the critically acclaimed author of The Fiftieth Gate and Thirty Days. He was also a much-loved member of the Melbourne and Sydney Jewish Communities. In this session, panellists who knew Mark well, will speak on aspects of his life and work and Michelle Lesh and Raimond Gaita will read from A Season of Death, Mark’s posthumous memoir, forthcoming.
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The Beth Din of Books: Best reads from those in the know
Now an annual fixture on the Melbourne Jewish Book Week calendar, The Beth Din of Books brings together writers and critics Tali Lavi, Elissa Goldstein and Bram Presser as they preside over some of the best new Jewish books around. Fun, irreverent but deeply imbued with a love of the written word, the Beth Din of Books is sure to help you find your next favourite read!
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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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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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Writing Lives: Anne Sebba on Ethel Rosenberg
We are delighted to present our Writing Lives conversation with esteemed British biographer, Anne Sebba, discussing her remarkable book: ‘Ethel Rosenberg: The Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother’. How did an otherwise non-descript, first generation Russian Jewish émigré, and mother of two young boys, become the first American woman executed on spurious charges, for a crime other than murder?
Anne Sebba is a biographer, journalist and former Reuters foreign correspondent. She has written many books including the best-selling ‘Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image’, ‘Laura Ashley, A Life by Design’ and ‘That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor’. She lives in London.
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Julian Borger in conversation with Rachelle Unreich
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and World Affairs Editor at The Guardian, Julian Borger in conversation with Rachelle Unreich, author of ‘A Brilliant Life’. They will be discussing Julian’s breakthrough, investigative memoir, ‘I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children and the Adverts that Helped Them Escape the Holocaust’.
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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.