Juliet Carey and Abigail Green

Waddesdon Manor curator Dr Juliet Carey and historian Professor Abigail Green describe the magnificent architecture, art collections and gardens of Jewish country houses across Europe and explain how they also tell a more complex history of prejudice and integration.

Carey and Green look at a series of houses that variously boasted extravagant art collections and gardens, were set up for lavish entertainment, or provided inspiration for the European avant garde. Some are now international museums while others are hidden gems. Carey and Green say they all demonstrate the achievements of newly emancipated Jews in Europe and a dream of belonging that mostly ended brutally in the Holocaust.

Carey is senior curator at Waddesdon Manor and Green is professor of modern European history at Brasenose College, Oxford. They are both part of a five-year University of Oxford research project into Jewish country houses and their role in European Jewish culture.

Part of the festival’s programme of Jewish and Hebrew literature and culture