Event Type: Video

Our panel of keen writers and readers review and discuss some of the less well-known books by Jewish authors, or on Jewish themes, which have given them great pleasure over the years. Expect a lively discussion of some unearthed and rare titles.

Bram Presser (moderator), Andrea Goldsmith, Lee Kofman, Veronica Sullivan

Yiddish performance, whether in theatrical, spoken or music form, is alive and well in Melbourne. Our panel of practitioners and researchers discuss what such performances tell us about ourselves, our past and our identity.

Nicola Mensa Hearn (moderator), Galit Klas, Rebecca Margolis, Simon Starr

How tolerant are the various Jewish communities when faced with stories and articles that question or provide external insights into their ways of life? What have been the experiences of novelists who have provided narratives that question accepted norms, or of journalists whose articles have caused controversy and dissent?

Bram Presser (moderator), Lisa Emanuel, Ashley Golderg, Julie Szego

Alice Zaslavsky, the friendliest voice in Australian food, leads the discussion with this team of highly respected culinary figures. How do we write about food? Who gets to write about food? What is it like being a caretaker of a cuisine?

Alice Zaslavsky (moderator), Dani Valent, Joanna Hu, Tony Tan

Join Elissa Goldstein as she chats with Canadian-American novelist, essayist and New Yorker contributor Rivka Galchen. Her range as a writer is vast and brilliant, encompassing everything from wry, psychological literary fiction to ruminations on motherhood, to reporting from the COVID frontlines in a New York City hospital. Galchen’s most recent novel, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, explores the life of Katharina Kepler (mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler), who was accused of witchcraft in the early 17th century. Set during a time of turmoil — as a plague is spreading and the Thirty Years’ War is about to begin — the story is replete with meaning for this moment in the 21st century.

Rivka Galchen is an international guest and will be appearing via live video-link.

Natasha Sholl’s recently published memoir Found, Wanting, tells the story of Natasha’s attempt to rebuild her life in the wake of her partner’s sudden death, stumbling through the grief landscape and colliding with the cultural assumptions about the ‘right way’ to grieve. Natasha will be in conversation with Dalit Kaplan, who has had a few essays published in which she reflects on loss, trauma, the Holocaust, and other sunny topics. Together they discuss grief, shame, the body, living in contradictory spaces and why writing trauma needs to come from scars, not wounds. They talk about why stories matter (or do they?) and why we shy away from uncomfortable conversations (until now!).

Two recent books have offered new insights into the remarkable exploits and achievements of the ‘Dunera Boys’.  Leah Garrett’s X Troop recounts the story of a secret commando group made up of Jewish refugees in Australia and elsewhere, who returned to Europe to liberate concentration camps. The Passenger, a lost novel by Ulrich Boschwitz, a Dunera Boy, describes the descending cloak of Nazi atrocities in Germany, and has been translated and published to universal acclaim. Sarah Krasnostein and Gideon Haigh discuss the enduring legacy of the Dunera Boys.

Jonathan Pearlman (moderator), Sarah Krasnostein, Gideon Haigh