The manifest success of the Jewish Literary Foundation’s Book Week was all the sweeter given the backdrop of October 7. Since that terrible day many Jews have expressed the need to gather in solidarity among their own and there is a harder anywhere better to sample some of the best that Jewish culture has to offer than the week-long bookfest.

Book Week provides one of those spaces where Jews of any denomination or none, or who may otherwise rarely show their face at a communal convention, can freely meet and mingle. A recognised event on the London literary calendar, it is open too to visitors from outside the community. This year, with many of the sessions sell-outs, audiences flocked to a programme rich in diversity where one could learn more about the life of Einstein, delve into the labyrinths of Kabbalah with the world’s leading scholar of it or discover a Hebrew sonneteer from the Italian Renaissence. Or they could spend time hearing about aspects of Israel and Jewishness that have nothing to do with conflict.

Like Limmud, JW3 or the pages of the JC, Book Week is a place where you may encounter views you may or may not share  — away from the bearpit of social media. It is a broad synagogue where the urge to understand prevails over the desire to do down opponents. As political forces threaten to increase polarisation and division, these common spaces which help to shore up a sense of collective identity are all the more to be treasured. No fewer than 13 of the JC’s regular contributors and staff took part in sessions over the week — tangible support of an event that we hope will go from strength to strength in the years ahead.