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

Whether it’s Covid 19, domestic and international politics, war or fake news, conspiracy theories and rumours have abounded over the past two years. This panel of scientists and journalists examines reportage in times of crisis. Deborah Stone (moderator), Peter Doherty, Margaret Simons, Norman Swan, Zoya Sheftalovich

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…

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…

What can writers and stories contribute in our collective response to climate change? In what direction do they point us?  Rebecca Forgasz (moderator), Danielle Celermajer, Daniel Sherrell, Mireille Juchau

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…

Join us as Melbourne Jewish Book Week presents In Our Nature – an opening night of original storytelling featuring writers, musicians and  performers live on stage at Melbourne’s Memo Hall.  Travel to landscapes near and far, real and imagined, thriving and disappearing. Meet creatures of flight, fur, and fancy from places urban and  remote, vast…

The Other Side of the Story: Essays on Jews, Christians, Cults, Women, Atheists and Artists, reveals the breadth and depth of Dr Rachael Kohn’s scholarship which led to and informed her creation, production and presentation of more than 1700 programs on religion for the ABC. Rachael Kohn will be in conversation with Rabbi Fred Morgan,…

MJBW and JQ present the latest in our series of Global Conversations. Join internationally acclaimed author and academic Eva Hoffman and Melbourne poet, writer and book editor Alex Skovron. Eva has written an important new essay for Jewish Quarterly about the remarkable but almost forgotten Polish Jewish poet Zuzanna Ginczanka (Gincburg), who was murdered by the…

What happened around this time last year when three Jewish literary tragics entered a room to talk books? Melbourne Jewish Book Week’s bookish version of Margaret and David was a roaring success. Who knew an evening of book recommendations could be so entertaining? Expect even more this year as our passionate book aficionados – Tali, Bram and Elissa –  preview some of the biggest forthcoming books, discuss their recent reads and tell…