Londoners may have spotted a giant green pickle bobbing through the capital, turning up at landmarks including the Tate Modern and Southbank Centre, with a simple message: the UK\u2019s first Jewish culture month has been launched.<\/p>\n
The celebration is aimed at bringing \u201cless oy and more joy\u201d after difficult years for the Jewish community.<\/p>\n
Beginning on 16 May, the festival, organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, will include more than 150 events across the UK, spanning food, music, comedy, architecture, fashion, film and literature. Institutions taking part include the V&A Museum, National Portrait Gallery, JW3 (London\u2019s Jewish community centre), the British Library and the National Holocaust Museum.<\/p>\n
Liat Rosenthal, the Board\u2019s director of culture, education and communities, said the project emerged from conversations with artists and cultural workers who felt Jewish life had become increasingly defined through hostility, grief and security concerns since the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, the response to antisemitism has to be this bold, proud, public moment,\u201d she said. \u201cThe history of British Jews is incredibly rich, and the contribution of British Jews to life across the UK spans not just arts and culture, but science, technology, innovation, psychotherapy, medicine and politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she stressed that the month was intended for all, regardless of background or religion. \u201cEveryone should get involved, learn something and eat lots of food.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pickle on its travels around London. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
That invitation to eat runs through much of the programme. At one event, the east London pickling company Shedletsky will host a traditional Friday night dinner.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Jewish communities that came out of eastern Europe were deeply entrenched in pickling and preserving traditions,\u201d said James Cooper, a co-founder. \u201cThere\u2019s this great through-line from ancient preservation techniques\u201d to the \u201cbig explosion\u201d in modern deli culture where pickles have become the perfect accompaniment.<\/p>\n
His co-founder, Natalie Preston, said the pair had agreed with organisers who told them there \u201ccan\u2019t be Jewish culture month without pickle involvement\u201d.<\/p>\n
But food had also been a way of opening conversations between communities, she added. \u201cI think that is one of the ways we can hopefully break down these awful barriers that are being put up at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
At JW3, in Hampstead, north London, one event, L\u2019Chaim \/ L\u2019Chaos: 50 Years of Jewish Punk, will explore the enduring relationship between Jewish youth culture and Britain\u2019s 1970s punk scene.<\/p>\n
The Jewish punk exhibition includes the work of the photographer Jamie Goldberg (pictured below). Photograph: Jamie Goldberg\/c\/o JW3 Photograph: c\/o JW3<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was something about this outsider teen culture that really attracted young Jewish people in the 1970s,\u201d said William Galinsky, JW3\u2019s director of programming. \u201cA lot of those young people were the first to go to university, or the first to decide they didn\u2019t want to go into the family business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other events at JW3, which is marking its 13th anniversary with a \u201cB\u2019Mitzvah\u201d (coming of age) celebration, include Miriam Elia\u2019s satirical exhibition<\/a> and book, Moses and the 613 Health and Safety Commandments.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking a lot recently about the playwright Jack Rosenthal<\/a>,\u201d Galinsky said. \u201cHe was one of the first writers to show the non-Jewish British public that Jews were just like them. They might have had slightly different holidays and eaten different food, but essentially this generation of Jewish immigrants that came before the immigrants from south-east Asia and the West Indies, were just like them.\u201d<\/p>\n That message is as important now as it was in the 60s and 70s, he added.<\/p>\n