Judeophobia, the great hatred. Is it a psychic aberration, a two-thousand-year-old disease? Loathing of Jews has been a feature of Christendom since the accusation of deicide. This, and enforced employment patterns – usury and trade – made the Jews the pariahs of Europe. The Enlightenment did not change it. Chameleon-like, the hatred became racial rather than religious. Today, there is an addition to the old prejudices – aversion to Israel. As the world falls to extremism, Jew hatred is, again, a unifying force.

Our panel, drawn from the worlds of history, politics, journalism and the law, will debate this longest hatred.

Lady Ruth Deech is a crossbench peer, member of UK Lawyers for Israel, formerly – chair of the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, governor of the BBC, Principal of St Anne’s College Oxford, chair of the Bar Standards Board, Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, trustee of the Rhodes Scholarships.

Trudy Gold is director of Holocaust Studies at JW3 and former chief executive of the LJCC. She has worked in Holocaust Education in Britain, Eastern Europe and China. She is the author of a timeline of Jewish History, and editor in chief of Understanding the Holocaust.

Rod Liddle is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He is an associate editor of The Spectator, and writes a weekly for The Sunday Times and The Sun. His last book was called Selfish Whining Monkeys.

Lord David Triesman is a Labour peer and Group Director at the Merchant Bank, Salamanca Group. He sits as a non-executive director at Havin Bank,  Funding Affordable Homes and is taking a leading role in the development of a new investment business in Cuba in partnership with Havin Bank. He was a Board Member of Wembley National Stadium and was Chairman of the Football Association.  Politically, he served as Under-Secretary of State in the FCO and later in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and held ministerial roles in Energy, Business and Higher Education, and Europe. Lord Triesman was appointed as a Lord in Waiting to HMQ in 2004.

Gavin Esler is an award-winning television and radio broadcaster, novelist and journalist. He is the author of five novels and two non-fiction books, The United States of Anger, and most recently Lessons from the Top, a study of how leaders tell stories to make other people follow them. It is based on personal encounters with a wide variety of leaders, from Bill Clinton and Angela Merkel to Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, and even cultural leaders such as Dolly Parton.

Sponsored by Jacqueline and Michael Gee.