RENAISSANCEJewish
V O L U M E 1 1 I S S U E 4 J U L Y 2 0 1 2
2 LETTERS 3 FROM THE EDITOR WHAT’S NEW 4 Laying the Ghost of Wannsee 5 One Town Remembers Judi Herman reports from Kolin 6 Is American Jewish Culture in Crisis?
Rebecca Schischa reports from New York
SPORTING HEROES
A FEATURE TO MARK THE LONDON GAMES 8 When and Why Jews Were Winners Jeffrey Gurock on the Hakoah Football Club 9 Hakoah Today – In Vienna and in Australia Hungarian Swimmers Paul Taylor on the first Olympic champions 10 Stopped in their Tracks Gretel Bergmann and the women swimmers of Hakoah And in the USSR 11 The Vanishing Professionals
Anthony Clavane argues that there is nothing un-Jewish about football 12 British Champions A look at the greatest
Jewish sporting figures of Britain 13 Father of the Paralympic Games
David Herman on Ludwig Guttmann And Table Tennis too Howard Jacobson’s Mighty Walzer and Viktor Barna 14 Inspiration from Israel – Eetta Prince-
Gibson interviews Paralympic rower Moran Samuel 15 Israel at the Olympics 16 Investing in the Future David Russell talks to David Kyte about Maccabi
JEWS OF BURMA 18 Timeline Saul Zadka 19 My Burmese Childhood Leah Yugin 20 The Youngest Burmese Jew
Sammy Samuels 21 Surprised by a Rangoon Cemetery
Saul Zadka 22 Review of Almost Englishmen:
Baghdadi Jews in British Burma Insurgency and Miss Universe
FOLLOWING THE FOODIES PAGE 48
JEWS OF BURMA PAGE 18
MORAN SAMUEL PAGE 14
CENTRE SECTION: PAGES 2 3 - 3 0 THREE-MONTH GUIDE TO EVENTS I N THE UK AND BEYOND
F I LM 3 1 A Microcosm of Israeli Society
Judi Herman reviews Tel Aviv University student films THEATRE 32 Israeli Theatre in London Sonia Zafer Smith’s report MUSIC 34 Charles Valentin Alkan David Conway’s portrait of a brilliant 19th-century composer/pianist 36 Jazz at Cafe Society Alex Webb tells the story behind his new musical show ART 37 Light from the Desert Angela Levine meets Ruth Dorrit and Amram Jacoby, an artist mother and filmmaker son BOOKS 40 From Revolution to Repression Ross Bradshaw remembers the murdered Yiddish poets of Russia CLASSIC CHOICE 42 Alexander Baron’s The Human Kind reviewed by Gerald de Groot 43 Sorrel Kerbel reviews an exhibition and book by Yaakov Israel 44 Savage Continent by Keith Lowe reviewed by David Herman 45 On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War by Bernard Wasserman reviewed by Peter Falush 46 Deborah Brooks reviews Ben Marcus’s The Flame Alphabet
POETRY Faces in the Void by Jane Liddell King and Marion Davies, and Collected and New Poems by Lottie Kramer, reviewed by Liz Cashdan 47 Poetry Choice Liz Cashdan chooses a poem by Norbert Hirschhorn FOOD 48 Following the Foodies Judith Mirzoeff visits West End Jewish delis 49 Treats for Twitterati Oliver Brooks looks at the supper club scene 50 Salmon and the Olympics David Russell talks to the owner of Forman’s smoked salmon factory LAST WORDS
52 All the World’s a Stadium Tamar S Drukker
Cover picture: Gretel Bergmann in 1937 when she was US high jump champion. See page 10
