Come with the Friends of the Jewish Museum to Bletchley Park, Home of the Codebreakers. In the library of the historic mansion we will hear from WW2 codebreaker, and Friend of the Jewish Museum, Rolf Noskwith, about his time at Bletchley, during which advances were made that changed the course of the war, and made history.

Following this talk we will have the chance to explore the museum and the grounds of the park, the ‘huts’ and the remarkable history of the former ‘Station X’
Tea and coffee provided. Travel to Bletchley not included. Find out more about Bletchley here

Exclusive to Friends of the Jewish Museum

LONDON LECTURE SERIES in association with the Jewish Museum, London

Dr Zehavit Stern (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies)

will give her inaugural lecture as the Idel and Isaac Haase Fellow in Eastern European Jewish Civilization:

Selling Yiddishkayt to the Jews: Folk Performance and the Quest for Authenticity in Yiddish Film

A lecture with film clips from Yidl with the Fiddle and The Dybbuk

Refreshments after the lecture.

From 6-7pm guests will have the opportunity to view the Museum’s galleries

If you would like to attend this event please reserve a place by e-mailing: enquiries@ochjs.ac.uk

The Jewish Museum and Globe Education at Shakespeare's Globe present: a staged reading of "The Prince of West End Lane", a new play for 8 actors set in a North London Jewish Care Home by Kerry Shale Based on the novel "The Prince of West End Avenue" by Alan Isler

Cast includes: Allan Corduner (Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy) as Otto Korner. With Amanda Boxer, Linal Haft, Michael Mears, Buster Skeggs, Jonathan Tafler, Bill Thomas and Faye Castelow.

Director: Matthew Lloyd

The elderly residents of the Emma Lazarus Care Home in North London are rehearsing an unbelievable production of HAMLET. Otto Korner, age 83, longs to play the Prince. But a beautiful young woman drags his terrible memories of Nazi Germany to centre stage.

Actor Kerry Shale is the author of six solo shows and two Sony Award-winning BBC radio plays.

"Shale's adaptation is cleverly structured: lifting you with comedy, then creeping up and mugging your heart" - Lyn Gardner, Guardian, on his solo version

Join us for creative play in our mess-friendly space. Have fun exploring the museum through song, stories, art and dressing up.

For under 5s with an adult. Free with museum entry. Drop in.

Pre-book your museum tickets below

Judaism Alive - Its Signs And Symbols

Angela Gluck

If a picture speaks a thousand words, an object speaks ten thousand! We’ll explore some of the artefacts Jewish families and communities created to express their cherished beliefs and values, and reflect on what they tell us about the story of Jews in Britain.

Angela teaches courses in history and religion at the LJCC. She has written over 40 books mainly on aspects of religious and cultural diversity in education, broadcasts on Jewish and educational subjects and leads Jewish tours to Poland and Spain. She has a special interest in the narratives of migrants and refugees and is a trustee of The Separated Child Foundation.

Hidden Histories Series Join some of the London Jewish Cultural Centre’s most popular lecturers to explore the Jewish Museum’s fascinating collections. A unique opportunity to hear experts explain artefacts in their historical context.

Other lectures in the Hidden Histories series:

21 June: Jewish Political Response to Socialism & Zionism

28 June: Would Our Grandparents Recognise the People We Are?

5 July: Creating the new Jewish Museum

An exciting new initiative from the London Jewish Cultural Centre and the Jewish Museum, London. Find out more about the LJCC here

Join us for the launch of a new book by Bernard Kops, with readings by acclaimed actor of stage and screen, Stephen Greif, and an introduction by Bernard Kops, followed by a Q&A and book signing.

“Do the dead know that life still exists, somewhere?” These thoughts were bugging him, piercing and twisting around in his brain. Then he came back down to the Elysian slopes of Muswell Hill ....”

Bernard Kops has written more than 40 plays for television, stage and radio, seven volumes of poetry and two autobiographies. Join us for the launch of the ninth novel by one of Britain’s most celebrated and prolific authors - a coming-of-age story by a master of storytelling on the need to love and cherish life and grab it by the drosky’s reins. This is Kops at his most irrepressible and irreverent, vibrant and lyrical and connected, to the present and the past.

The Odyssey of Samuel Glass is available through any bookshop - find out more about the book here

If you are starting to trace your family history and would like to find out more about researching your Jewish ancestors, come to one of our workshops, which offer a fantastic opportunity to consult standard texts, swap information and get advice from experts.

Please bring your family tree with you.

Jewish Political Response to Socialism & Zionism

Trudy Gold

Eastern European Jewry revolutionized the existing community. Using artefacts from the museum’s collection we will look at responses to Jewish socialism and Zionism.

Trudy is Executive Director of Education and Holocaust Studies at the London Jewish Cultural Centre and senior lecturer in Jewish history which she has taught for over 25 years. She is editor in chief of the teaching resource pack Lessons of the Holocaust.

Hidden Histories Series Join some of the London Jewish Cultural Centre’s most popular lecturers to explore the Jewish Museum’s fascinating collections. A unique opportunity to hear experts explain artefacts in their historical context.

Other lectures in the Hidden Histories series:

14 June: Judaism Alive - Its Signs And Symbols

28 June: Would Our Grandparents Recognise the People We Are?

5 July: Creating the new Jewish Museum

An exciting new initiative from the London Jewish Cultural Centre and the Jewish Museum, London. Find out more about the LJCC here

Sundays: 24 June and 8 July

Writing workshops inspired by the Jewish Museum’s exhibition World City: Refugee Stories. Express your own story or respond to those of others in poetry, prose or playscript.

Sessions facilitated by Lynette Craig MPhil.

In partnership with Exiled Writers Ink

In this illustrated lecture, historian Dr Sharman Kadish will introduce new research on stained glass in British synagogues, casting light on a significant but under-appreciated Jewish art form. She will explore examples from synagogues all over the country, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, including works by designers David Hillman, Nehemiah Azaz and Roman and Ardyn Halter.

Sharman Kadish is Director of Jewish Heritage UK and the author of numerous publications on Jewish history and heritage, including companion architectural guides Jewish Heritage in England and Jewish Heritage in Gibraltar and The Synagogues of Britain and Ireland: An Architectural and Social History

Would Our Grandparents Recognise the People We Are? Clive Lawton

The conditions, attitudes and preoccupations of Jews in the UK have changed hugely in the last 100 years. We’ll take a quick look at the earliest history of Jews in the UK. But mainly concentrating on the last century or so, we’ll compare the exhibits in the Museum to our own current experience and consider what that tells us about what British Jews have lost and gained.

LJCC Scholar in Residence Clive is also an Independent Member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, a magistrate in Haringey, Senior Consultant to Limmud, a freelance management and educational consultant. His creative style of teaching makes him one of our most popular lecturers.

This event will have live speech-to-text transcription so that deaf, deafened and hard of hearing visitors can access the talk.

Hidden Histories Series Join some of the London Jewish Cultural Centre’s most popular lecturers to explore the Jewish Museum’s fascinating collections. A unique opportunity to hear experts explain artefacts in their historical context.

Other lectures in the Hidden Histories series:

14 June: Judaism Alive - Its Signs And Symbols

21 June: Jewish Political Response to Socialism & Zionism

5 July: Creating the new Jewish Museum

An exciting new initiative from the London Jewish Cultural Centre and the Jewish Museum, London. Find out more about the LJCC here

Creating the new Jewish Museum

Rickie Burman

In 2010 the Jewish Museum completed a major transformation and this year it celebrates its 80th anniversary. This session will explore the journey to create the new museum and discuss the interpretation underlying its new displays, drawing together themes touched on in the lecture series.

Rickie has been Museum Director of the Jewish Museum London since 1995 and was Project Director of the Museum’s redevelopment project. She is the outgoing President of the Association of European Jewish Museums and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Hidden Histories Series Join some of the London Jewish Cultural Centre’s most popular lecturers to explore the Jewish Museum’s fascinating collections. A unique opportunity to hear experts explain artefacts in their historical context. Other lectures in the Hidden Histories series:

14 June: Judaism Alive - Its Signs And Symbols

21 June: Jewish Political Response to Socialism & Zionism

28 June: Would Our Grandparents Recognise the People We Are?

An exciting new initiative from the London Jewish Cultural Centre and the Jewish Museum, London. Find out more about the LJCC here

This walk, led by Blue Badge guide Rachel Kolsky, evokes the memories of Eastern Europe Jewish refugees who lived in East London in the late 19th century.

Alongside the old synagogues, schools and soup kitchens, we will hear the stories of other immigrant groups, the Huguenots and Bengalis, who also made this area their home.

This classic tour ends with a special visit to Sandys Row Synagogue. Established in 1854, it is the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in London and the last remaining synagogue in Spitalfields. The newly renovated Sandys Row is still a home to a lively congregation and this is your opportunity to hear its fascinating history and see the refurbished interior.

Meeting point provided on booking

Join our Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky to discover the memories of this early north London Jewish suburb, now intermingled with regeneration and the growing orthodox community.

With its neighbourhood park, numerous synagogues and shops, this tour provides an insight into the migration from the East End and community initiatives including maternity homes, schools and social housing associated with communal leaders such as the Bearstead and Schonfeld families.

Meeting place provided on booking

Join us for creative play in our mess-friendly space. Have fun exploring the museum through song, stories, art and dressing up.

For under 5s with an adult. Free with museum entry. Drop in.

Pre-book your museum tickets below

Jewish life in Hackney was once rich and vibrant.

Join our Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky on a journey from Hackney Central to Dalston, discovering the stories of synagogues, boxing rings, Rothschild dwellings, socialist movements and the array of singers and writers for whom Hackney was a childhood home.

End at the lively Ridley Road market where bagels were once sold amid the heckling of the Fascists.

Meeting point provided on booking

If you are starting to trace your family history and would like to find out more about researching your Jewish ancestors, come to one of our workshops, which offer a fantastic opportunity to consult standard texts, swap information and get advice from experts.

Please bring your family tree with you.

Explore the lesser visited area East of Brick Lane with our Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky.

Surrounded by the wonderful taste and smell of bagels, the sights and sounds of the street markets and designer stores you can really feel the memories of the Jewish community flood back. There are synagogues, markets, a maternity home and Hughes Mansions whose residents were almost entirely Jewish when tragedy struck in 1945.

The tour ends at the closed Ashkenazi cemetery in Brady Street, which is opening up specially for our tour.

Meeting place

In the year of the Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II, join our Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky for our tour in and around Westminster, following in the footsteps of British monarchs (and a republican), past and present.

Through churches, palace and parks you will discover some background to 'the Firm', royal personalities and at the same time uncover Jewish connections through friendships, heritage and honours bestowed.

Meeting place provided on booking

Join our Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky for this fascinating tour of the National Portrait Gallery, where you will discover members of the Jewish community who became distinguished British subjects in the fields of politics, finance, industry and culture.

Their stories and those of the artists reflect the wider story of the development of the Jewish community in the UK.

Meeting point provided on booking