The Schmooze
A life-affirming Jewish Book Week made space for debate... and dinner plans
London’s longest-running literary festival was packed with new ideas
March 12, 2025 20:08
London’s longest-running literary festival was packed with new ideas
March 12, 2025 20:08What’s the correct collective noun for a group of Jews at Book Week? A debate? A digression? A disagreement that turns into dinner plans? Whatever it is, it was at Kings Place last week, where London’s longest-running literary festival unfolded in a blur of overstuffed tote bags, frantic book signings and lively discourse.
Dara Horn coined the phrase “people love dead Jews” and it’s hard to argue with her when you see how Holocaust memorials attract more attention than living, breathing Jewish communities.
But Jewish Book Week is a defiant rebuttal of Horn’s maxim. Here are Jews, in the present tense, arguing, laughing and filling rooms to hear about everything from colouring books to the impact of artificial intelligence.
So, when I found myself at an evening session on the making of Ukrainian Jewry and poet Ilya Kaminsky declared: “Europe is a Jewish graveyard,” I couldn’t help but think, well, not here, not in London. We’re very much alive.
Kaminsky’s session with Marina Sapritsky-Nahum and chair Marina Pesenti was the most poignant of my Book Week. The talk opened with a question about how many people in the audience had familial ties to Ukraine. Most of the room raised their hands. Kaminsky recalled how his grandmother was born in Odesa in 1918, when Jews made up around 50 per cent of the population. Today, it is less than 1 per cent.
They spoke of the Odesa of Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Sholem Aleichem, of Yiddish newspapers, theatres and poetry. A cosmopolitan hub where culture thrived – it’s now at the centre of Putin’s war against Europe.
Sapritsky-Nahum spoke of Ukrainian fighters who had made aliyah, only to return to Europe to fight on the front lines against Russia. Some of these fighters were disillusioned with Israel’s response to Russia’s war – and even more so with Donald Trump’s recent actions. After October 7, some returned to Israel to fight Hamas. Jewish Ukrainians – and Ukrainian Israelis – are engaged in two existential wars.
Kaminsky reminded the room that Putin’s war had dredged up old demons. Ukrainians are being targeted for their identity, language and traditions. For Jews, this is a grimly familiar story.
Despite the ghosts and grief, this was Jewish Book Week. So when Kaminsky lamented the decline of Yiddish literature, an audience member naturally interjected to tell him about a children’s book written in Yiddish. And the first Haggadahs written in Ukrainian were presented to the audience.
Elsewhere, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue spoke to Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand about the shifting landscape of Jewish identity. The fact that there is a synagogue on Park Avenue is a mark of how integrated Jews are in America, Gelfand pointed out, but Cosgrove noted that integration does not mean immunity. On October 7, some realised for the first time the extent of antisemitism in the US. Cosgrove’s book For Such a Time as This parallels the Purim story of Esther with the situation of Jews today.
His message? We must combat antisemitism from within. And that means engaging with those we might disagree with, especially in our own communities. Cosgrove asked: “How to respond to a non-Zionist Gen-Z-er? The question is whether you write them off or whether you engage with them, and my tactic is engaging with them.” He invites people to his dinner table and talks and listens. “They are the Jewish future,” he implored.
A similar theme emerged in a session on Young Zionist Voices. David Hazony’s collection of essays examines what it means to be a Zionist today.
By far the liveliest Q&A of my week, the discussion between contributors Oliver Anisfeld and Noah Katz, chaired by Natasha Hausdorff, escalated into a fiery debate, with fractures in the room mirroring the divides in the diaspora.
This wouldn’t be Jewish Book Week without some dissent. From Joshua Leifer’s talk on the fault lines of American Jewry in Tablets Shattered to Lionel Shriver in conversation with Zoe Strimpel and Tom Segev and Anshel Pfeffer discussing Segev’s One Palestine Complete, there were voices from across the spectrum.
Segev even celebrated his 80th birthday on stage. Where better to begin one’s octogenarian years than JBW, debating, discussing and disagreeing?
I just must remember my tote bag next year – the bookshop was great!