Shalom | Sydney Jewish Writers Festival 2019: Full Schedule

7:30pm PDT

Storytellers: Like a Prayer with musicians, artists, poets, singers and songwriters.

We usually think of stories in traditional ways - anchored in written (sometimes spoken) words and unfolding between the covers of books. Similarly, we tend to think of prayer as a formal, scripted act that takes place in specific spaces and contexts. Storytellers: Like a Prayer invites you to reconsider your own perceptions of stories and prayer. Let us take you on a journey to discover (or rediscover) means of connecting by joining artists, singers, song writers and poets as they share how they use their stories as prayers.

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Moderators

Miriam Hechtman

Miriam is a creative producer, journalist, writer and poet. She is the founder and host of POETICA, a monthly poetry open mic night in Bondi, Sydney. Miriam also writes poetry under the insta handle @_fourlines. She is mother to two daughters and wife to one man.

Speakers

Ginette Ball

Ginette Ball is a teacher, writer and poet who holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Masters of education from Sydney University. She regularly shares her poetry at Bondi's open mic night Poetica and has helped run the night since its launch in 2017. Ginette has contributed her... Read More →

Isser Feiglin

Immersed in traditional niggunim and everything from Bizet to Simon & Garfunkel to contemporary Hassidic singers, Isser took his first Chazzan position at age 14 and has never looked back. Bringing emotion and personal meaning into ancient prayers and poems is Isser's passion. He... Read More →

Jessica Chapnik Kahn

Jessica is an Argentine Australian singer-songwriter, actress and writer. She has worked in theatre and TV, toured the world playing in the bands of some of Australia’s finest artist, as well as releasing her own solo music under the moniker Appleonia. Most recently, Jessica published... Read More →

Amanda Cohen

Amanda is a poet, essayist and avid traveller. Originally from the United States, she now lives in Bondi, and recently became a regular performer at poetry readings in Sydney. Through her writing, she aims to capture our shared discomfort with vulnerability (and tackle her own). Amanda... Read More →

Michael Burrows

Michael Burrows is an original folk and rock artist based in Melbourne. He has toured nationally and internationally, collaborated with numerous artists including Neil Finn of Crowded House fame, hit the US charts and has had wide radio support across commercial radio networks in... Read More →

Alexi Kaye

Alexandra is an accomplished singer who gave it all up to follow God. Through that process, she realised that singing WAS God - a way of connecting with the truest part of herself - and that singing was what God had planned for her all along. With this new understanding and a desire... Read More →

Nadav Kahn

Nadav Kahn is an Israeli-born APRA award winning singer/songwriter. He has toured the world with several collaborative and solo projects, releasing 10 albums to date. For many years Nadav has studied the mystical powers of sound in India which has enhanced his approach to music making... Read More →

Amir Paiss

Amir is a poet, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, composer and healer. He is co-founder of Sheva, the Hebrew-Arab music ensemble with which he performed in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Israel and won 2 gold records. Amir studied philosophy, Sufism, Jewish mysticism... Read More →

Ilan Kidron

Ilan Kidron is a Sydney based singer/songwriter, best known as the lead singer for Australia’s multi platinum selling dance music act The Potbelleez. As a writer he is a double ASCAP, double APRA award winner and has two Billboard Latin #1s. He has co-written releases with stars... Read More →

Tuesday August 20, 2019 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

7:30pm PDT

Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom shared by Ariel Burger in conversation with Elliot Perlman

Elie Wiesel was known for many things - he was a Holocaust survivor, novelist, memoirist, Humanitarian and Nobel laureate. But when asked, he always said, 'I am a teacher first.' It was as a teacher and a mentor that Rabbi Dr Ariel Burger knew him. Join Ariel and Elliot Perlman as together they explore Wiesel's lessons, his philosophy on life and what it means to be a witness while staying sane. This session will transport you into Wiesel's classroom, into the heart of what made him unique, bringing you to understand the power of his humility.

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Moderators

Elliot Perlman

Elliot Perlman is the recipient of the Queensland Premier's award for Advancing Public Debate and has been described by the Times Literary Supplement (UK) as 'Australia's outstanding social novelist', by Le Nouvelle Observateur (France) as the 'Zola d'Australie' and by Lire (France... Read More →

Speakers

Ariel Burger

Ariel Burger is the author of Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), which won a National Jewish Book Award. He is also an artist and teacher whose work integrates spirituality, the arts, and strategies for social change. An Orthodox rabbi... Read More →

Thursday August 22, 2019 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

1:00pm PDT

Split: True Stories of Leaving, Loss and New Beginnings. Kerri Sackville, Lee Kofman, Ramona Koval with Lexi Landsman

Lee Kofman, Kerri Sackville and Ramona Koval in conversation with Lexi Landsman
There is a turning point in all our lives where we face loss, sudden endings and new beginnings. In the compelling anthology, Split, curated by editor and author Lee Kofman, eighteen acclaimed authors write funny and, at times, heartbreaking true stories of hope and possibility, challenge and defeat, humility and honesty. Their candid reflections cover many topics from anorexia, divorce and affairs to coping with career endings, illness and cultural change. Join Lee and two of the contributors - Kerri Sackville and Ramona Koval - as they discuss their deeply personal journeys.

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Moderators

Lexi Landsman

Lexi Landsman is an Australian television producer, author and journalist. She has worked on a range of award-winning documentary series that have aired in Australia and internationally. She is the author of two novels, The Ties That Bind and The Perfect Couple, published by Penguin... Read More →

Speakers

Lee Kofman

Lee Kofman is an Israeli-Australian author and editor of seven books, including Imperfect: How Bodies Shape the People We Become, a work of creative nonfiction (2019, Affirm Press), and Split: True stories of leaving, loss and new beginning (2019, Ventura Press), an anthology of memoir... Read More →

Kerri Sackville

Kerri Sackville is an Australian author, columnist and social commentator. She is a regular contributor to Sunday Life magazine, the Fairfax website Daily Life, and news.com.au. Kerri’s work has appeared extensively in online and print publications including SMH, Practical Parenting... Read More →

Ramona Koval

Ramona Koval is a writer, journalist, broadcaster and editor. She is an honorary fellow at the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne. Her recent books include Bloodhound: Searching for my Father (Text Publishing), By the Book: A Reader’s Guide to Life (Text Publishing... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

1:00pm PDT

The Collaborator: Diane Armstrong in conversation with Rita Nash

Hungary, March 1944 – Eichmann is intent on deporting every Hungarian Jew to Auschwitz but he doesn’t factor in to this process an audacious proposal to trade the lives of more than one and a half thousand Jews on a train bound for Switzerland for 10,000 trucks to be deployed on the Eastern Front. Was this collaboration or desperation? And how do you decide who should get on that train? Diane Armstrong explores one of the great moral dilemmas of the Holocaust in this fictional account based on true events. It’s a dilemma that is still unresolved despite the passage of time and the harshest retribution.

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Moderators

Rita Nash

Rita managed a successful independent bookshop for 13 years after many years of teaching and librarianship in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Twenty years ago she finally came to terms with her Holocaust demons and described this process in her story The Last Barrier... Read More →

Speakers

Diane Armstrong

Diane Armstrong is a child Holocaust survivor who was born in Poland in 1939 and arrived in Australia in 1948. An award-winning journalist and bestselling author, she has written six books including her family memoir, Mosaic. Diane's fiction has focused on true events from which she... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

2:15pm PDT

Is the Past Ever Passed? Andrea Goldsmith, Gigi Fenster, Miriam Sved in conversation with Ludmila Stern

Jonathan Safran Foer wrote that "everything is illuminated in the light of the past. it is always along the side of us ... on the inside, looking out." Join three master storytellers as they discuss how a writer makes peace with a past that overshadows the present. Is it possible to lay the past to rest? Are we ever able to truly make peace with our histories and those of our ancestors? From Russia to Hungary and New Zealand, these three voices traverse the globe with their experiences, each navigating their way through the haze of memory and history.

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Speakers

Ludmila Stern

Ludmila is a Professor of Interpreting and Translation at UNSW. Her interests include history and literature. The monograph Western Intellectuals and the Soviet Union, 1920–40: From Red Square to the Left Bank (Routledge 2007) comprises her historical research focusing on the study... Read More →

Gigi Fenster

Gigi Fenster has PhD in Creative Writing, and various law degrees. Her first book, The Intentions Book, was a finalist in the New Zealand Post Book Awards and was longlisted for the Commonwealth Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award. Her second book, Feverish, traces her quest to induce... Read More →

Andrea Goldsmith

Andrea Goldsmith is a Melbourne-based novelist. Her fifth novel, The Prosperous Thief, which covers the turbulent sweep of the 20th century through the lives of two very different Jewish families, was short-listed for the 2003 Miles Franklin award, while The Memory Trap (2013) was... Read More →

Miriam Sved

Miriam Sved’s second novel, A Universe of Sufficient Size, was recently released by Picador. She has also been a contributing editor on three feminist anthologies, including #MeToo: Stories from the Australian Movement. Her novella ‘All the Things I Should’ve Given’ was a... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 2:15pm - 3:15pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

2:15pm PDT

Post #MeToo - Men, Women and Power in the Aftermath of the #MeToo Movement: David Leser in conversation with Michaela Kalowski

#MeToo started as a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault that had been happening in industries across society. It quickly evolved into a rallying cry to dismantle organisational power structures that discriminated against women and were barriers to women's equality.

What's different since #MeToo? What does it mean to have men talking about the #MeToo movement? and how might that change the conversations, power dynamics and relationships between women and men?

David Leser, journalist, author and interviewer, talks about the post #MeToo world with Michaela Kalowski.

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Speakers

Michaela Kalowski

Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer and facilitator. She has conducted radio interviews for ABC RN's The Music Show and Big Ideas, for ABC Classic FM and has presented programs on ABC RN and Local Radio. She regularly facilitates panels at writers and ideas festivals including Sydney... Read More →

David Leser

David Leser is a Walkley award winning journalist and author of seven books, including his memoir To Begin To Know: Walking in the Shadows of My Father (Allen & Unwin, 2014) which was shortlisted for the 2015 National Biography Award. His latest book Women, Men and the Whole Damn... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 2:15pm - 3:15pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

3:45pm PDT

Driving to Treblinka: Diana Wichtel (NZ)

Is it better to know, or more bearable not to? It's a burning question for many of the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, a question that consumed NZ journalist, Diana Wichtel. Diana's mother was a Catholic New Zealander, her father a Polish Jew who miraculously survived the Holocaust. As a young girl, her mother whisked her and her siblings away to New Zealand. Their father was to follow. She never saw him again. Driving to Treblinka is Diana's attempt to find her father and herself.

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Speakers

Diana Wichtel

Diana Witchtel is an award winning writer and television critic with the New Zealand Listener. She received the 2016 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship, enabling her to write Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father, about the impact of the Holocaust on her family. It won the... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 3:45pm - 4:45pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

3:45pm PDT

The Perils of the Online World: A conversation between Ginger Gorman and Kerri Sackville

The online world is full of dangers, not just for children, but for anyone who ventures into public forums like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Lurking in the online shadows are all sorts of unsavoury types, including trolls who can be politically motivated, seeking specific outcomes or simply seeking to amuse themselves. In the end, trolling is a spectrum of behaviours with mild pranks at one end and hate crimes – like the Christchurch massacre – at the other. (Yes, he was a predator troll!) This conversation between Ginger Gorman and Kerri Sackville will explore some of the perils of living in the online world, shedding light on how each has chosen to deal with their trolls and stay sane.

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Moderators

Kerri Sackville

Speakers

Ginger Gorman

Ginger Gorman is an award-winning social justice journalist based in Canberra, Australia. In 2013, Ginger and her family suffered the effects of online hate first hand, and it was this experience that set Ginger on her professional journey into the world of trolls. In 2017 her series... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 3:45pm - 4:45pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

5:00pm PDT

The Weight of Trauma: Ariel Burger (USA), Meera Atkinson, Maria Tumarkin in conversation with Michaela Kalowski

How does trauma shape us? How does it leave its mark on the spaces and places where violence has been perpetrated? Two powerful writers consider trauma and healing from different perspectives. In Traumata Meera Atkinson explores the lifelong reverberation of trauma - across generations and across social structures. And educator, Rabbi Ariel Burger spent years working alongside Elie Wiesel who channelled his own trauma into his teachings.

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Speakers

Michaela Kalowski

Meera Atkinson

Meera Atkinson is the author of Traumata, published by UQP in 2018, and two academic books. She writes across literary genres and her work has appeared in many publications, including Salon.com, Best Australian Poems 2010, Best Australian Stories 2007, Meanjin, Southerly, and Griffith... Read More →

Ariel Burger

Sunday August 25, 2019 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion

6:30pm PDT

Hummus, Hebrew and the History of Israel: Gil Hovav (Israel) in conversation with Joanna Kalowski

Join Gil Hovav, Israel's premier foodie, will savour and discuss hummus, the genesis of modern Hebrew, Israeli flavour and the history of modern Israel. Gil has seen Israel unfold from various vantage points - through his culinary expertise and famous lineage. He brings unique wit and wisdom to tickle your tastebuds and stimulate your imagination.

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Speakers

Gil Hovav

Gil Hovav is a leading Israeli author, culinary journalist and TV host. He comes from one of the most respected lineages in the Jewish world: he is the great-grandson of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the father of the modern Hebrew language; the grandson of Itamar Ben-Avi, who began modern... Read More →

Sunday August 25, 2019 6:30pm - 7:30pm PDT
Bondi Pavilion