In the 1940s a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. Within a decade nearly all 150,000 had fled. Of those remaining, most escaped in the 1970s or were killed. Today, … Continue reading The Wolf of Baghdad: Memoir of a Lost Homeland
Klezmer – the instrumental music of Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews – has survived assimilation, suppression and eradication and is now a recognisable ‘world music’ commodity, as well as an object … Continue reading Klezmer Music: History and Contemporary Practice Around the World
Max Lewkowicz’s richly detailed documentary celebrates the illustrious Broadway show Fiddler on the Roof, the evergreen shtetl-set musical first staged in 1964 with choreography and direction by Jerome Robbins and … Continue reading Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles
Willesden Cemetery, which opened in 1873, is one of London’s most prestigious Jewish cemeteries. It is run by the United Synagogue who were fortunate to be awarded a £1.7m grant from … Continue reading Willesden Jewish Cemetery
Adapted from Tatiana de Rosnay’s best-selling novel of the same name, Sarah’s Key is an account of research by a journalist into a shameful incident in French history which intertwines … Continue reading Sarah’s Key
During the Inquisition, the Crypto-Jews or Chuetas publicly professed Catholicism while privately adhering to Judaism. Synagogues were secretly built in private homes. Signs of this “secret” community can still be … Continue reading The Secret Jews of Majorca Island
A Call to Spy is an historical drama inspired by the true stories of women recruited into England’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Desperate for new recruits, … Continue reading A Call to Spy
“Ghetto” is an extraordinarily complex word which is both a noun and an adjective. It has layers of contrasting meanings accrued over five hundred years and a bewildering array of … Continue reading The Ghetto: Travelling through history
USA 2005, 104 mins, English, Russian, Ukrainian Director Liev Schreiber, featuring Elijah Wood, Eugene Hütz This American biographical comedy was adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel of the same name. … Continue reading Everything is Illuminated
Yoav Ben-Shlomo • Bristol Ernest Bloch, though not a religious Jew, is probably the most famous Jewish composer of the twentieth century. Born in Geneva in 1880, he studied in Brussels, … Continue reading Ernest Bloch: more than a Jewish composer
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