Author Archives: mauricen

Jews worry. That is part of our DNA. Sometimes, it is needless and we indulge in ‘oy gevults’. But at other times there are good reasons to worry. Jonathan Romain has been at the forefront of some controversial campaigns within the Jewish community (such as pioneering a more welcoming approach to mixed-faith couples, trying to make faith schools more inclusive, arguing for assisted dying to be legalised, and intervening in the 2020 General Election) and, in his talk, he will explore the seven major challenges faced by British Jewry. Come and find out what they are…and decide whether we need to worry or not.

Jonathan Romain is a rabbi, writer and broadcaster, He is Minister of Maidenhead Reform Synagogue, writes for The Times and The Jewish Chronicle, and is often heard or seen on the BBC. He is Chaplain to the Jewish Police Association, President of the Accord Coalition (campaigning for inclusive education), and Vice-Chair of Dignity in Dying. His latest book, The Naked Rabbi, John Hunt Publishing (£10.99) came out in May 2022.

On 1 November 2022, Israel went to the polls for the fifth time since 2019. By the time of this talk, clear results were not yet available, as Israel entered a protracted period of coalition formation. We were fortunate indeed to welcome to the Lit the founding editor of The Times of Israel, David Horovitz, to make sense and unpack for us the results of the 1 November elections and to analyse their implications for the future.

David immigrated to Israel from London in 1983, was editor and publisher of the award-winning magazine The Jerusalem Report, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post and launched The Times of Israel as an English paper in 2012. It now publishes in French, Arabic, Persian and Hebrew (Z’man Yisrael) and has an average of 40 million monthly readers. He lectures widely in Israel, the USA and Europe on Israeli current affairs and has conducted landmark interviews with Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr  Zelensky and, much to delight of his children, Paul McCartney. He has published several books on Israel, including The Jerusalem Report’s 1996 biography of Yitzchak Rabin – Shalom, Friend- which he edited and co-wrote, and which won the US National Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction.

The daily and weekend edition of The Times of Israel, as well as The Jewish Times, may be dropped into your electronic post by ordering it from www.timesofisrael.com. You can enjoy an ad-free experience by taking out a modest monthly or annual subscription, which is greatly encouraged.