Simon Schama

Award-winning historian and broadcaster Professor Sir Simon Schama gives the festival’s first annual lecture on antisemitism with a talk on its history and origins.

In his latest book, The Shortest History of Antisemitism, Schama says that as the world embraced new ideas and discoveries, including Christianity, Islam, the enlightenment, globalisation and new technologies, Jews have served as a dark mirror on which anxieties, fears and hatreds have been reflected. He looks at the forces that have led this old hatred to surface, adapt and thrive even in an age of liberal democracy. And he considers the latest outbreaks of antisemitism since the October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza.

Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. His award-winning books include Citizens, A History of Britain, The Power of Art, and The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words (1000 BCE - 1492). He has written and presented more than 50 films for the BBC including works on Tolstoy, the story of the Jews, and as co-presenter of the landmark series on the history of world art, Civilisations.

This event is the first of an annual lecture on antisemitism to be hosted by the festival. It answers the fear that growing antisemitism is part of a wider threat to liberal democracy posed by extreme voices on the right and left and that this affects everyone not solely the Jewish community.

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