"A Land to Die For?"

Meretz UK welcomes you to a talk by David Ranan featuring readings from his recent book A Land to Die For? Soldier Talk and Moral Reflections of Young Israelis

• Time: 8pm on Sunday, 12 May

• Place: Hashomer House

Normal entrance contributions; refreshments served

Released in English in November 2012, Ranan's book consists of fascinating interviews with young Israelis - and raises many profound and existential moral questions



Cover of German language edition

More about book

Israeli governments have for many years maintained a consensus concerning the need for the nation’s citizens to serve in the army. This consensus was based on the ethos of a Jewish state surrounded by Arabs who want to destroy it. The Iranian nuclear program is the most recent of the many threats to the Israeli state.

But for some time Israel’s black and white view of itself has been eroding. Conscientious objection to conscription and ‘draft dodging’ as well as the rights and wrongs of occupation and settlements have become explosive issues for all shades of Israel’s political spectrum. Can we expect young Israelis, who are called to serve their country at eighteen, to have the maturity to weigh such complex issues? Does Israeli society really want them to?

For this stimulating book, David Ranan held interviews with Israelis aged between eighteen and thirty. The twenty-seven monologues presented here reveal some of the difficult moral questions that concern this generation. First published in German in 2011, this English-language edition contains a comprehensive introduction to Israel’s history that has been revised and updated to maintain its relevance.

Letters from Palestine - an unmissable film!

Meretz UK and Spiro Ark are proud to present the fascinating documentary film Letters from Palestine, by Ludovica Fales, who will answer questions after the screening.

• Wednesday 10 April at 8 pm
• Hashomer House, 37a Broadhurst Gardens NW6 3QT
• Admission: £10 with refreshments served afterwards

 

"We all belong to a past - a past that can bury us unless we excavate it. A journey into the unresolved questions of the Middle Eastern conflict and into the death of a man in the 1920s who believed in the dream of a land shared by Arabs, Jews and Christians.

Imagine discovering an unsolved family mystery in your great-grandfather's letters - a mystery nobody in your family wants to talk about. My great-grandfather, Angelo Levi Bianchini, set out for Palestine on a diplomatic mission in the 1920s and never came back.

After spending a few months in Palestine, he had become a vocal advocate for Jewish-Arab coexistence but his views were often unpopular. To his ninety year old daughter Angela, my grandmother, the mystery of his death remains an open wound."
 
- Ludovica Fales

See also http://www.spiroark.org/events/922/letters-from-palestine-documentary/

New date for Antony Lerman book launch

• Sunday, 24th March
• 8pm at Hashomer House

The Making and Unmaking

of a Zionist

Antony Lerman

in conversation with Brian Klug
 

Meretz UK is delighted to host two compelling speakers whose views demand attention. Expect a fascinating presentation followed by a lively debate!

• This meeting was originally booked for 20th Jan but had to be postponed due to poor weather. We hope all who planned to attend can make this one.

In his controversial new book, The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist: A Personal and Political Journey, Antony Lerman traces how, as a teenage socialist, he enthusiastically embraced Zionism, became an Israeli citizen in 1970 and a kibbutznik, and served in the Israeli army. But he returned to England in 1972 and developed increasing doubts about Israel's trajectory.

After a few years as an academic he joined the Institute of Jewish Affairs, and in the 1980s and 1990s he became active at the highest levels of international Jewish political and intellectual life. Gradually losing his Zionist ardour he became a leading critic of Israel’s political direction. Lerman also criticised what he saw as the Jewish community's increasingly shrill sense of victimhood, and clashed with the Jewish establishment.

While he was Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in the mid-2000s, communal leaders acted to silence him and prise him from his post. His latest book has generated strongly divergent opinions, as evidenced in Ha'aretz, in Al Arabiya and in the Jewish Chronicle - to cite just three!

Brian Klug is Senior Research Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Benet's Hall Oxford University and author of Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life (2011). For more on his ideas see this link.

 

Both appeared together with Diana Pinto at the recent Jewish Book Week

Admission: £5.50, concessions £4.50, members £2

 

Light refreshments served

 

Hashomer House, 37a Broadhurst Gardens NW6 3QT

Tube: Finchley Road

Overground: Finchley & Frognal

Buses: 82, 13, 113, 46, C11, 268

"When Abel met Cain" - 20 March performance

 

When: 20/03/2013

Where: 37a Broadhurst Gardens, NW6 3BN

Time: 19:30

Contact: 02072896321/ 07942978780

Price: £10 (+1 booking fee)

This event is a collaboration between Meretz UK and  the Spiro Ark 
To book please press:

Book now 

We are delighted to host at Hashomer House When Abel met Cain, a gripping and intense performance of myth, wonder and real life stories. Taking as its point of departure the famous Biblical account of the world's first murder, this storytelling and musical journey vividly brings viewers up to the present day with a portrayal of conflict worldwide, and a particular focus on the Israel/Palestine dispute.

 

The show blends everyday tales with myth, acting with music, the universal with the particular. A success at the Edinburgh Festival and later performed in various venues in London, When Abel met Cain features two extraordinary actors and performers, Raphael Rodan (from Israel) and Anastasios Sarakatsanos (from Greece).In their quest, storyteller and musician join powers to probe the darker side of human psyche and find light. The audience is guided through cobblestone paths, paved with memories, loves, fears, melodies, turbulent battles, tenderness, and laughter that stretches from despair to redemption.

For more photos and videos please visit:
http://whenabelmetcain.wordpress.com/

http://www.spiroark.org/events/913/when-abel-met-cain/
 

*Please BOOK ASAP to avoid disappointment!