In 1996, the historian Deborah Lipstadt was pursued in the UK courts by the notorious Holocaust denier David Irving, for calling him a falsifier of history in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. This movie version of those events, stars Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt and Timothy Spall as Irving. … Continue reading Denial
Yoga is one of at least six Hindu religions as old or older than Judaism. It overlaps through serendipity with the concept of “Adam Kadmon” (original man) in Rabbi Moshe de Leon’s Zohar – published in manuscript form in the late 13th century Castile but attributed by some to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai the 2nd … Continue reading Kabbalah and Yoga
Adapted from Diane Ackerman’s 2007 non-fiction book, the film follows Warsaw zookeepers Jan (Heldenbergh) and Antonina (Chastain) as they risk their lives to save Jewish townspeople from the Nazis by concealing them in their zoo home-turned-pig farm. From the opening scene of almost fairy-tale idyll, life is transformed by the arrival of the Nazis. The … Continue reading The Zookeepers Wife
Starting with Theodor Adorno’s much-quoted proposition that ‘After Auschwitz it is barbaric to write poetry’, this talk will explore the tension between confronting the reality of the Holocaust and responding artistically through the medium of poetry to human experience. By focusing on individual poems by survivors such as Paul Celan and Primo Levi and … Continue reading No poetry after Auschwitz
Set in the 1830s, the story centres on Rosina da Silva, the sophisticated eldest daughter of a wealthy Jewish Italian family living in a small enclave of Sephardic London Jews. When her father is murdered on the street and leaves behind numerous debts, she refuses an arranged marriage to an older suitor, declaring that she … Continue reading The Governess
With Bristol holding its first Limmud event in June 2018, it’s time to hear what makes Limmud so remarkable. Founded in 1980, Limmud has spread all over the world, empowering Jews of every stripe and type to take control of their own learning. It has pioneered modes of participatory leadership and how different Jews … Continue reading From Buenos Aires to Bristol – The history of Limmud, the global Jewish educational phenomenon
Norman (Richard Gere), a New York fixer, knows the right people and can get things done. When an Israeli dignitary named Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi) comes to the city, Norman decides to impress the man by buying him some very expensive shoes. It works and he establishes a strong connection to the man, but a few … Continue reading Norman: the moderate rise and fall of a New York fixer
“The novelty of our time that so many individuals have experienced the uprooting and dislocations that have made them expatriate and exiles.” The words of Edward Said encapsulate the widely-held view that exile was emblematic of the modern world. This talk will focus upon three artists featured in the exhibition ‘Out of Chaos’ at the … Continue reading Painting Exile: R. B. Kitaj, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff
There can hardly be any more extraordinary story from the Hollywood golden age than that of Hedy Lamarr; an assimilated Austrian Jew, a very beautiful star with a moderate acting talent but an untutored brilliance in science and engineering.. Her tragedy was that she was in the wrong business, precisely that business that promotes beauty … Continue reading Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr story
Dating back to the time of King Solomon, some of the oldest Jewish communities in the world are to be found in India. In 2016, Sonia Jackson joined a tour of Indian Jewish sites and synagogues organised by Maidenhead Synagogue and led by Ralphy and Yael Jhirad. She will give an illustrated talk about … Continue reading The Jews of India
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