Michael Gawenda’s arresting memoir, My Life as a Jew, preceded October 7 yet eerily prophesied the difficult questions that confront Jews today, in terms of identity, place and time. Hear Gawenda as he cuts to the core of what it is to be a Jew, then and now, in a heartfelt, honest conversation with former…

Mark Raphael Baker was a Holocaust scholar, an inspiring teacher and the critically acclaimed author of The Fiftieth Gate and Thirty Days. He was also a much-loved member of the Melbourne and Sydney Jewish Communities. In this session, panellists who knew Mark well, will speak on aspects of his life and work and Michelle Lesh…

Now an annual fixture on the Melbourne Jewish Book Week calendar, The Beth Din of Books brings together writers and critics Tali Lavi, Elissa Goldstein and Bram Presser as they preside over some of the best new Jewish books around. Fun, irreverent but deeply imbued with a love of the written word, the Beth Din…

A very special in-conversation event starring sensational New York playwright, director, songstress, actress, and author Eleanor Reissa with our very own man-about-books, Scott Whitmont.

In her Jewish Quarterly essay ‘Blindness’, Hadley Freeman addresses a most perplexing phenomenon that has arisen out of the Gaza war, rearing its head immediately after October 7: the exponential rise in antisemitism on a world stage. This has been all the more shocking as it has been most evidently propagated within the political left, taking many by surprise.

In this Global Conversation, join Hadley in conversation with foreign correspondent Irris Makler for an examination of the equivocations, contortions and hypocrisy displayed by elements of the left across the political, media, arts and higher education sectors.

Katia Ariel discusses her 2024 Stella shortlisted sensation, ‘The Swift Dark Tide’, in conversation with playwright and theatre producer, Jessica Bellamy. Ariel’s memoir deftly flows between journal entry and reminiscences of a childhood in Odessa, emigration to Australia, a happy family life, and the urgency and turmoil of a same-sex love affair. The depth and honesty of this ‘Writing Lives’ is both disarming and profound.

We are delighted to present our next Writing Lives conversation with esteemed British biographer, Anne Sebba, discussing her remarkable book: ‘Ethel Rosenberg: The Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother’. How did an otherwise non-descript, first generation Russian Jewish émigré, and mother of two young boys, become the first American woman executed on spurious charges, for a crime other than murder?

Anne Sebba is a biographer, journalist and former Reuters foreign correspondent. She has written many books including the best-selling ‘Mother Teresa: Beyond the Image’, ‘Laura Ashley, A Life by Design’ and ‘That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor’. She lives in London.

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and World Affairs Editor at The Guardian, Julian Borger in conversation with Rachelle Unreich, author of ‘A Brilliant Life’. They will be discussing Julian’s breakthrough, investigative memoir, ‘I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children and the Adverts that Helped Them Escape the Holocaust’.

Richard Cooke will speak with Deborah Stone on the roots of the turning in Elon Musk’s rise to power, and what his evolution reveals about a wider shift in the politics of Silicon Valley and beyond.

When award-winning writer, Ben Judah, embarked on a pandemic-fuelled mission to learn Hebrew, he did not anticipate the immensely personal internal shift that would occur in him. Judah will speak with critic and writer Tali Lavi about his experience of longing for and learning the language, and of his belief in Hebrew as the missing connection between Israel and the Diaspora.