Jewish takes on death, from burials to sitting shiva, with Nessa Rapoport & Sally Berkovic.

From burials to sitting shiva, join the authors of two intriguing new books on how Jewish communities mark death.

Nessa Rapoport, author of Preparing for Sabbath and A Women’s Book of Grieving, returns with Evening: A Novel, with a Jewish family mourning the death of one of two sisters.

And in Death Duties: The Chevra Kadisha Jewish Burial Society, What Being Around the Dead Taught Me About Life, Sally Berkovic, CEO of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe and author of Under My Hat, takes the reader into a sometimes mysterious world, reflecting on the meanings of the rituals and their place in the entirety of Jewish life.

After first broadcast this stream will be available to watch on demand until Thu 31 Mar.

Nessa Rapoport, born in Toronto, Canada, is the author of Evening: A Novel (Counterpoint Press, 2020; paperback 2021). The story of two sisters in their 30s and their secrets, Evening is set in a shiva house as one sister grieves for the other. It was chosen as a best book of the fall by Vogue, LitHub, Entertainment Weekly, Hey Alma, Refinery29, and Brooklyn Public Library’s ‘Our Favorite Books from 2020’; and praised in a starred Publishers Weekly review. It was a 2020 National Jewish Book Award finalist in fiction and is shortlisted for the 2021 Vine Awards in Canadian Jewish Literature. Nessa Rapoport is the author of a previous novel, Preparing for Sabbath; a volume of her prose poems, A Woman’s Book of Grieving; and a memoir, House on the River. She speaks frequently on Jewish culture and imagination.

Sally Berkovic was born in Australia and is the daughter of Slovakian Holocaust survivors. She studied at Melbourne University and worked as a social worker and academic for ten years. Sally lived in Jerusalem and New York before an epistolary romance brought her to London in 1993 where she established a freelance writing career while her children were young. Since 2009, she has been the CEO of the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe, supporting Jewish heritage and culture across Europe