Reviews

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Jews Don’t Count ★★★★

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Jews Don’t Count ★★★★

Since my schooldays, I’ve had a thing for TS Eliot – despite overtly antisemitic lines in his poetry. “Rachel née Rabinovitch tears at the grapes with murderous paws” (Sweeney Among the Nightingales, 1920) gave me pause for thought all right. Our English teacher called him out…

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The Last Cyclist ★★★★

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The Last Cyclist ★★★★

Conditions in the concentration camp Terezin (German Theresienstadt), near Prague, designed by the Nazis to hold Jews en route to the death camps, were harsh enough to ensure many died right there. Yet its name also evokes the extraordinary flowering of artistic life the prisoners…

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Never a Native ★★★★★

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Never a Native ★★★★★

Never a Native is for every woman who has ever yearned, aspired or been driven to activism against unethical attitudes and behaviours to women. It is also for every woman who, like the author Alice Shalvi, has the courage to face her failures, doubts and guilt resulting from her…

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Little Wars ★★★★

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Little Wars ★★★★

As we wake to a war of words transatlantic style at a possibly pivotal moment in history, Steven Carl McCasland’s war of witty women provides a timely, telling antidote. It’s June 1940, the eve of the fall of France to the Nazis. Hunkered down in the French Alps, devoted couple Alice B Toklas…

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The Mock Appeal with Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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The Mock Appeal with Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Four years ago I was privileged to be a spectator in a very unique courtroom. The setting? Venice Ghetto. The case? Shylock v Antonio. The Mock Appeal – held as part of the ghetto's 500th anniversary celebrations, during which…