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The Review - FEATURE
 


Film maker Mike Leigh will talk about Jewish themes for the first time


Eric Hobsbawn

Book festival open to all

It's Jewish Book Week and with over 50 events and a host of top names there's bound to be something for everyone, writes Dan Carrier

THE biggest annual book festival in London kicks off this month and features some of the leading thinkers in British letters.

The Jewish Book Week, held at the Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury, features over 50 events and includes such names as historians Eric Hobsbawm and Antony Beevor, film maker Mike Leigh, writers David Grossman and Jonathan Freedland and a discussion chaired by leading QC Baroness Helena Kennedy.
Although primarily featuring events based on Jewish themes, its wide boundaries mean it is a secular occasion. According to Gail Sandler, the chairwoman of the festival council who lives in Swiss Cottage, the aim is to produce thought-provoking events.
It is now the country’s longest-running book festival and springs from a post-war wish to galvanise Anglo-Jewish culture.
The Jewish Book Council was formed in 1947 by a barrister called George Webber. He was born and grew up in Manchester but moved to north London to study Law at The University College London.
His daughter Marilyn Lehrer is still a regular visitor.
“He felt strongly that people simply did not read enough books,” she says.
“After the war there was little happening in terms of cultural events on the Anglo-Jewish scene. They were hard times, and rationing included paper. British Jewry was coming to terms with what had happened in Europe.
“Week after week there were notices in the Jewish chronicle with people looking for information about their relatives. My father wanted to do something to raise their spirits, and there was not a book event.”
This prompted Mr Webber to form the Jewish Book Council. In 1952, the council decided the next step was to establish a festival.
The beginnings were humble: lectures were held in a small room in Woburn House, Bloomsbury. Sellers were invited to take stalls around the edge of the room while talks were being held.
Mrs Lehrer recalls: “It was not a big venue but it was enough in the early years.”
Mr Webber chaired the council and then became president up to his death in 1982.
His daughter says her father’s vision was to create an umbrella under which all strands of Anglo-Jewry could meet to discuss art and culture.
She added: “My father was very traditional but the festival was open to every body – Orthodox, Reform, Liberal, Progressive and every one in the middle.
“I do not think this is something that could happen so easily today. My father was adamant everyone should participate – but today I think views are more polarised.”
And Mrs Lehrer said the contributors had changed over the years – partly because of the move from Woburn House into the larger Royal National Hotel.
She said: “The parameters have become much wider. With more space, the scope had broadened – there are the more academic events and then popular speakers – and it is therefore more accessible and is attracting a wider audience.”
Mrs Lehrer said she was particularly looking forward to listening to a reading by Belsize Park-based actor Oliver Meek of Zvi Jagendorf’s Strudelbakers, a book about a family from Swiss Cottage in the immediate post-war period and how they assimilated.
Mrs Lehrer says: “I grew up in the area and I went to South Hampstead School. I remember the many refugee families in the area and this book covers the period well.
Chairwoman Gail Sandler joined the festival’s council two years ago.
Mrs Sandler says the challenge the organisers face each year is to make sure the remit is wide enough to allow people of differing interests to feel the book week is aimed at them.
“My qualification for my involvement is I am a book lover,” she says.
“I am looking forward to hearing Eric Hobsbawn, and David Grossman will also be a draw – he is great with a non-Jewish audience.”
She believes the growth of the festival is down to a general improvement in literary festivals across the country.
She said: “People have become more interested generally in these types of events. Literary festivals are extremely popular. We try to give it a twist and we are trying to attract people who are secular. We want a pluralistic audience.”
For Mrs Sandler, the boards problem is often not what to put in – but what to leave out.
“There are so many interesting topics for us to explore,” she says.
“It means we have to carefully put together the programme and judging by its strength I feel we have achieved what we set out to do.”

Festival highlights

Highlights of week include actor Henry Goodman reading from Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto.
Zangwill grew up in the East End during the latter part of the 19th century and his fictional depictions based on his early childhood have become a classic.
Film director Mike Leigh, whose recent play Two Thousand Years caused a stir when it was performed at the Royal National Theatre, will be speaking with journalist Mark Lawson.
Leigh has not worked on Jewish themes before – his family name was Lieberman but was anglicised before his birth. The play focussed on a secular Jewish family and is the first time Leigh has talked about Jewish themes.
Anthony Beevor will be discussing the writer Vasily Grossman, whose wartime notes and journalism thrilled the historian while he was researching his bestseller on the siege of Stalingrad.
And the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton will be discussing the relationship between Christianity and Judaism with Rabbi David Rosen, who has founded the discussion group the Interfaith Forum.

• The Jewish Book Week runs from February 25 to March 5. Look out for next week’s New Journal’s Book Week special Review supplement.
For more information: www.jewishbookweek.com or 0870 060 1798.
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