Ideas and books abuzz at Sydney Jewish Writers Festival

Bondi was abuzz this weekend as hundreds of people gathered for the 2016 Sydney Jewish Writers Festival.

The festival opened at the Bondi Pavilion with a fascinating and hopeful discussion between award-winning Israeli journalist Matti Friedman and stereotype-defying Rabbi Dov Lipman about fractures in Israel and the quiet, slow progress being made to overcome some of them.

“Israel is such a dynamic and complex place, it is always wonderful to hear different perspectives on issues,” said Festival Director Michael Misrachi. “Friedman and Lipman offered analysis, reflection and vision, which are as essential as ever.”

(L-R) Festival Director Michael Misrachi, Rabbi Dov Lipman, moderator Debbie Whitmont, author and journalist Matti Friedman and Waverley Councillor Leon Goltsman.

Audiences were then serenaded by Lee Kofman and Adi Sappir, who performed the poetry of celebrated Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai.

Orli Wargon, David Gonski, Kathy Shand & Michaela Kalowksi 

The program continued on Sunday at Waverley Library with sessions on refugees, music, true crime, and both fictional and real-life stories of Holocaust survival. Audiences were inspired by philanthropist and businessman David Gonski, and moved by authors Shelley Davidow and Alexandra Joel, who explored how one passes on a family legacy without transmitting difficult and traumatic aspects. Matti Friedman spoke to a capacity crowd about his books, The Aleppo Codex and Pumpkinflowers, which promptly sold out at the bookshop.

Davidow, who appears at the Brisbane Writers Festival in the coming weeks, enthused that the program was so topical: “It explored issues facing the country, the world, and people’s lives.”

Dina Gold’s riveting story of reclaiming a family building stolen by the Nazis, the book launch of Rebellious Daughters, and the session on death – which featured authors Leah Kaminsky and Steven Amsterdam along with Rabbi David Freedman and SMH Literary Editor Susan Wyndham – also drew particularly large crowds.

“Audiences flocked to engage with the issue of the end of life, which touches us all but remains highly emotive and still largely taboo,” Misrachi said. “It was thought-provoking and poignant to confront issues like suicide and euthanasia, as well as the panellists’ personal experiences with death.”

Kids enjoyed getting to meet the mother-daughter team of Barbara and Anna Fienberg, authors of Tashi. 

Children were also highly engaged at the festival through three sessions run in conjunction with PJ Library. Kids played with words and language with Erica Bental, author of Has a Book Got a Spine, and intensely quizzed Anna and Barbara Fienberg about how they wrote the beloved series Tashi.

For photos from the Festival please go to our facebook page.

Stay tuned to www.sjwf.org.au for podcasts from the 2016 Sydney Jewish Writers Festival. 

Looking forward to next year!

Matti Friedman: soldier, journalist and author

by Sydney Jewish Writers Festival

Canadian-born author and former Associated Press journalist Matti Friedman will be speaking exclusively in Sydney this weekend as the guest of the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival before travelling to the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Matt Friedman

Friedman has travelled from Jerusalem to Sydney for the SJWF 2016, and is currently promoting his newly released book Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story.

Pumpkinflowers centres on the contentious withdrawal of the Israeli Army from Lebanon in the late 1990s, and Friedman’s own experience as a soldier for Israel during that time stationed on an isolated hilltop outpost called ‘the Pumpkin’.

Friedman describes himself as “the first, and I fully expect to be the last, historian of this particular hill”. 

“For many years, this hill was very important to me and was probably the most important place in the world,” Friedman has written since releasing Pumpkinflowers.

“If you map my mental landscape, the centre of that landscape is the Pumpkin.”

Friedman explains his motivation to write this book: “I thought that if I could nail the story of the Pumpkin and make it comprehensible, and make it understandable to people very far away, it would enrich people's understanding of what has happened in the Middle East since this new century began.”

The book has received high praise already: The Jewish Standard has described Pumpkinflowers as “well on its way to joining the select group of wartime narratives that continue to grip and grate on the conscience long after they have been read, put back on the shelf, or passed along”; while the New York Times’ book critic Jennifer Senior described it as “a truly fine war memoir”.

Friedman will talk to many of the issues raised in his book as well as the broader geo-political realities of the Middle East in the opening night session on Saturday August 28 at Bondi Pavilion. The session entitled Israel’s battle lines with former Israeli parliament member Rabbi Dov Lipman will discuss both the internal and external challenges faced by Israel.

Before Pumpkinflowers, Friedman has previously received great acclaim for his 2012 book The Aleppo Codex; as well as viral internet attention in 2014 for essays Friedman wrote in Tablet and The Atlantic about the ties between foreign press corps in Jerusalem and non-governmental organisations that results in media bias against Israel, and in early 2015 for a speech he made on the subject at the annual Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (BICOM) dinner.

Friedman boldly stood up at that dinner and explained the systematic bias against Israel inherent in media organisations in his experience as a journalist covering Israel and the Middle East for The Associated Press in its Jerusalem bureau. 

Friedman speaking at the 2015
BICOM dinner

“In my time in the press corps I saw, from the inside, how Israel’s flaws were dissected and magnified, while the flaws of its enemies were purposely erased.

I saw how the threats facing Israel were disregarded or even mocked as figments of the Israeli imagination, even as these threats repeatedly materialised.

I saw how a fictional image of Israel and of its enemies was manufactured, polished, and propagated to devastating effect by inflating certain details, ignoring others, and presenting the result as an accurate picture of reality.”

The video of the speech can be viewed here. 

The Aleppo Codex, which traces the journey of the thousand year old manuscript of the Hebrew Bible known as “the Aleppo Codex” through the Middle East – discovered hidden in a grotto in the Great Synagogue in Aleppo, Syria; smuggled between countries; and eventually arriving in Israel in the late 1950s. The book explores how 200 of the pages went missing, who was involved, and the cover ups surrounding the whole affair.

The Aleppo Codex earned Friedman the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the American Library Association’s 2013 Sophie Brody Medal, the 2013 Canadian Jewish Book Award for History, and the book was named one of Booklist’s top ten religion books of 2013.

An incredible speaker on all matters relating to Israel and more, Matti Friedman is a must see at this year’s SJWF!

Matti Friedman will be speaking in two sessions at the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival. In “Israel’s battle lines” on Saturday August 27 from 7:30-8:40pm, Matti will be speaking alongside former Knesset member Rabbi Dov Lipman about the challenges currently confronting Israel from all angles, moderated by Four Corners reporter Debbie Whitmont. 

Michael Visontay will be in conversation with Matti about his own journey and experience as a journalist, soldier and now author on Sunday August 28 at 12:30-1:30pm in “Unearthing Israel’s hidden stories: In Conversation with Matti Friedman”.

Book your tickets now to see Matti in his only Sydney public appearance at www.sjwf.org.au!

Ideas and literature shine at Sydney Jewish Writers Festival

We are excited to be back, for the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival (SJWF) returns on 27-28 August 2016! It features a remarkable line-up of international award-winners, thought leaders, acclaimed authors, new talent, and plenty of extraordinary stories.

“We are thrilled to showcase such a fine and fascinating line-up of writers”, said Festival Director Michael Misrachi. 

“They stir us to grapple with big, global issues – war, religious extremism, refugees, end of life, and family dynamics – but also write beautifully and invite us to enjoy the poetry and music of life.”

Opening night is a case in point. It features award-winning Israeli author and journalist Matti Friedman whose new book Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story was described by Pulitzer Prize-winner Kai Bird as “destined to become a classic text on the absurdities of war” and critique of media coverage of Israel after its 2014 war with Gaza went viral on social media. He discusses Israel’s battle lines with stereotype-defying Rabbi Dov Lipman, former Member of the Knesset and campaigner against religious extremism in Israel.

The panel is followed by cellist and composer Adi Sappir and author Lee Kofman performing an uplifting, musical rendering of the work of Yehuda Amichai, modern Israel’s most beloved poet.

US-based author Dina Gold shares her
incredible search and long legal battle to reclaim a building that belonged to her German-Jewish family but was stolen by the Nazis, in the spirit of the Helen Mirren movie Woman In Gold. Precious possessions lost during the Holocaust also feature in the fiction of New Zealand author, Julie Thomas.

SJWF will host the Sydney launch of Rebellious Daughters and feature hot-off-the-press authors Steven Amsterdam, Nathan Besser and MeredithJaffe.

“We are struck every year by the wealth of Jewish literature being published”, enthused Misrachi, “There has been a flurry of excellent Jewish writing in the months leading up to the festival!”

Leading figures David Gonski and Mark Tedeschi open up about their writing, along with Mireille Juchau, whose recent masterpiece The World Without Us won the 2016 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for The Stella Prize and Australian Book Industry Award.

SJWF features prolific acclaimed author Arnold Zable, who will also talk about his work as a refugee advocate with Kooshyar Karimi, who shares his experience as a Jewish-Iranian refugee who languished in Turkey for years.

Holocaust survivor Baba Schwartz tells her story publicly for the first time, recounting the horrors of Auschwitz as well as her happy childhood in Hungary, a period often overshadowed by the subsequent tragedy. She is joined by Frank Vajda and Marcel Weyland, who were both saved by Righteous of the Nations – Raoul Wallenberg and Chiune Sugihara respectively.

SJWF offers writing workshopsfor adults with Lee Kofman and for children with word play extraordinaire Erica Bentel, in conjunction with PJ Library. There is also a special parent-child session with the mother-daughter creative genius behind Tashi, Barbara and Anna Fienberg.

SJWF will once again be hosted by Waverley Council, with events taking place at the Bondi Pavilion and Waverley Library.

For further information or to book tickets, visit www.sjwf.org.au