Frizz

Sunday at Jewish Book Week.

A really wonderful session with Julia Neuberger, Lynne Segal and Susannah Heschel discussing the women’s movement and Judaism and so much more. I’d love to be in a classroom with Susannah Heschel even though it would be a challenge and she could (and did) go off into a language that I didn’t understand, a language of tradition that I have never learnt, but it would be expanding.

I was back for the evening sessions. The first was Judith Butler and Udi Aloni - Judith Butler, who D has been raving about since she saw the session was on, lived up to my subsequent high expectations. She’s a theorist and philosopher with a cult following - Bianca Jagger, Helena Kennedy and Lynne Segal were there amongst others.  Her new book Precarious Life deals with US policy since 9/11:

…And though for some, mourning can only be resolved through violence, it seems clear that violence only brings on more loss, and the failure to heed the claim of precarious life only leads, again and again, to the dry grief of an endless political rage…

I missed the beginning of Howard Jacobson and to be honest I found it hard to concentrate with my head still in the previous session, but Peter Florence did a great job and at any other time it would have been fascinating to hear about Jacobson’s childhood and the themes in his new book. And he has that ability to make an audience of 600 feel as if they are part of a small intimate group, a warm and cosy way to end the festival.