This six week course explores the experiences and responses of Jews in Europe, America and Palestine during the turbulent decades from the 1880s until the eve of the Nazi rise to power. No previous knowledge of the topics is necessary.
Each week, we learn and debate together about a subject from the broad span of Modern Jewish History. This term we will explore the diverse ways in which Jewish identity has been expressed in the modern world by looking at a range of Jewish individuals, including prominent intellectuals, rabbis, and communal leaders as well as ‘ordinary’ Jews of various kinds.
Allen Packwood and Lord (Michael) Dobbs will discuss Churchill’s legacy on stage and screen.
A four part course exploring the chequered history of Britain’s relationship with refugees, past and present. Professor Tony Kushner will explore how refugees were treated, how they were defined in law, and how they created their identities in places of asylum.
James Bulgin, Head of Content at the new Holocaust Galleries at the Imperial War Museum, will discuss the underlying principles of re-presenting the Holocaust, and some of the new museological methods and interpretive techniques that they have used to create galleries fit for the 2021.
Professor Shirli Gilbert explores Jewish life during the turbulent middle decades of the twentieth century, from the the intensification of antisemitism in interwar Poland to the 1947 UN vote to partition Palestine.
In this talk, Dr Jennifer Craig-Norton will challenge traditional interpretations of the Kindertransport, analysing the Kindertransportees’ experiences, the motivations of caregivers, the responses of the voluntary agencies and the trauma of the parents, forced to make the impossible choice to send their children away.
This four-week introductory course explores various kinds of wartime filmmaking, including documentary, newsreel, drama and comedy. Through analysing key films and their associated artistic movements and cultural contexts, Dr Julia Wagner explores how contemporary attitudes were shaped and reflected by film.
