Golden Age, Babel … and Publishing

We are entering an unlikely golden age  for Jewish cultural provision in London.  Though the Jewish community in the capital  is less than a quarter of a million, and has been in long-term decline (though this might change with the Orthodox influx)  the number of cultural outlets increases with mind-boggling multi-million pound projects.  Following the succesful move of the London Jewish Cultural Centre to Ivy House in 2006  we now have the  newly revamped  Jewish Museum in Camden Town which re-opened in March. It is  a  much more diverse resource than its somewhat frumpy predecessor with attractive displays and  a good  programme of events for young and old.  The  Jewish Community Centre for London being built in the Finchley Road will soon follow with a wide mix of cultural events and social activities already taking place around North London. Meanwhile successful festivals such as Limmud and the Jewish Book Week pulls in 10,000 visitors and the Jewish Music Institute, Spiro Ark are part of the creative endeavours.

I think what we are seeing, a new diversity of cultural provision,  almost a Babel of voices, reflects the confidence and prosperity of a mature and lively community.

But it would be nice to see a similar trend in supporting publishing ventures.  I am not carping. Some of my books, such as Once Upon A Time in Lithuania by artist Naomi Alexander, have benefited from generous sponsorship. and in these financially straitened time there is less money around.  But the fact is there is no real focus on preserving  and uncovering  written works by Jewish authors. 

There are many fine Yiddish works that have never been translated,  European  fiction and non-fiction destroyed by the Nazis  and many top living  Jewish authors from around the world whose works we would like to see in English but which need some financial support to make them commercially viable. How many Israeli authors do we actually get to see in translation? Aside from Amos Oz, David Grossman and Etgar Keret there are many other good Israeli writers whose works should be on our shelves.  

 The European Association of Jewish Culture (based in London and Paris)  over ten years awarded 110 grants to different European arts projects but all went to new drama, art, music or film (apart from one year when new journals were allowed).  Books were seen as problematic, the organisers could not agree which country should benefit from a  book in translation. So books are getting forgotten about.  Yet the people of the Book know the enduring power of the written word.

So let’s wake up and put books to the forefront of the next wave of cultural endeavours. maybe we need a new institution to make it happen. There’s plenty of interest amongst publishers of books of Jewish interest, and I’m definitely up for it, but we do need commercially-minded financially experienced people and philanthropists to make it happen!

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April 8 events: Bernard Kops and Ruth Barnett

Thursday night, April 8, 7pm Bernard Kops reads from This Room in the Sunlight at Whitechapel Art Gallery where his poem about the old Whitechapel Library, which inspired him to become a writer, is etched on a window …

“How often I went in for warmth and a doze:                                                            

the newspaper room whilst my world outside froze.                                       

And I took out my sardine sandwich feast.                                                

Whitechapel Library, Aldgate East!                                                                         

And the tramps and the madmen and the chattering crone.                         

The smell of their farts could turn you to stone,                                                

but anywhere, anywhere was better than home …”                                                                                                                                                          

It was lines like these that might have prompted film director Mike Leigh to say of his work: “Kops evokes the real world – the world as we know and live and breathe it.”

Also on Thursday night April 8, at 7pm, Ruth Barnett is at the Jewish Museum in a panel discussion “How Do We Tell Our Children About The Holocaust?”
In her book, Person of No Nationality, Ruth describes how important it is for young people to learn how bullying, prejudice and racism can lead eventually to genocide. She encourages students to be active in stopping bullying. She describes her work with teachers to help them engage students in the issues. “Teachers need guidance to help them understand what the Holocaust tells us about human behaviour. It takes courage to accept that the Nazi perpetrators were ordinary people, and that we too, could have been perpetrators, or victims, if we had been there at that time.”