Richard Bolchover, Aviva Dautch, Harry Freedman & Adam Taub on a fundamental question.

For centuries the Jewish people have been known as the people of the Book, but what does it mean to be a literate Jew in the 21st century?

What are the core texts we should be reading to understand history, literature, philosophy and religion from a Jewish perspective?

London School of Jewish Studies lecturer Adam Taub, British Jewry and the Holocaust author Richard Bolchover, poet Aviva Dautch and The Talmud: A Biography author Harry Freedman bring decades of wisdom to discuss this fundamental question.

Harry Freedman is Britain’s leading author of popular works of Jewish culture and history. His publications include The Talmud: A Biography, Kabbalah: Secrecy, Scandal and the Soul, The Murderous History of Bible Translations and The Gospels’ Veiled Agenda. He has written for the Guardian, Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Quarterly, Judaism Today and contributed to the Encyclopaedia of Modern Jewish Culture.

Aviva Dautch is Executive Director of Jewish Renaissance magazine, an academic and poet. Poetry commissions include the British Museum for Refugee Week, and Hay and Bradford Literature Festivals for the Gustav Klimt Centenary. A sequence of her poems were published in Primers Three (Nine Arches Press: 2018). Aviva received an Author’s Foundation Award from The Society of Authors to work on her first collection, We Sigh For Houses, which was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 poetry programme in August 2020.

Richard Bolchover studied Jewish History and Hebrew Literature at University College London, St. Antony’s College Oxford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he was a Rotary International Foundation Scholar studying at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry. His British Jewry and the Holocaust is published in hardback by C.U.P. and in expanded paperback form by the Littman Library. He has worked in the City for 35 years, co-founding two successful business, and is Vice Chair of the Anglo-Israel Association.

Adam Taub studied Natural Sciences and Law. He practised in the field of Intellectual Property before giving up the Law, much to his grandmother’s concern. He now coaches senior executives for key presentations. He has been a lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies for 20 years and is the co-founder of a charity called Etgar that aims to inspire a love of Jewish learning in young Jewish students.