Vetta Alexis
is an Artist, Calligrapher and Educator, specialising in Hebrew Calligraphy and Illumination. She has exhibited widely including at the British Library, The Museum of London and The Jewish Museum. Vetta is an Associate Lecturer with the Open University, and also has extensive experience in working with the arts in educational and therapeutic contexts, working with children, adolescents, families and adults. She has an MA in Hebrew and Jewish Studies, specialising in Yiddish studies.
Jacqui Ansell
studied Art History at Essex before going on to specialise in History of Dress at the Courtauld (focusing on Dress in England and the Netherlands 1600-1640 as the subject of her M.A.). She has worked for several years as an Open University tutor and as a former full-time Education Officer at the National Gallery. She works freelance for the National Gallery, NPG and Tate Britain, and is currently working full-time at Christies Education tutoring fine and decorative arts at B.A. level.
Ross Alley
is a music lecturer for Birkbeck College and he has also given numerous guest lectures for numerous other institutions including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Philharmonia Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra.
As a musician, Ross worked as a pianist (and music tutor) for the Royal Ballet School and now, as a specialist lecturer on music for dance, he has been a regular faculty member for annual summer courses for ballet teachers in the U.S.A., Canada and Italy. He has published a number of articles in The Dancing Times.
Patrick Bade
is an author, and a senior tutor at Christie's Education Department. As well as teaching at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, Patrick has taught for The Prison Service, The Royal Academy of Arts and The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He has also contributed to radio programmes including for Classic FM.
Bernard Barnett
is a practising psychoanalyst and training analyst. He is Director emeritus of The Squiggle Foundation which promotes the work of the eminent psychoanalyst and paediatrician Donald Winnicott. Holding a degree in English, he enjoys a life-long research interest in integrating and enriching the two disciplines.
Julian Barnett
is a teacher and writer with a specialist interest in ultra orthodoxy within Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths. His experiences and travels were serialised in the Jerusalem Report during the years that he was resident in Jerusalem and also broadcast on BBC Radio Four Religion.
Osnat Blauer-Rivlin
has a BA in Geography & History of Art from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has been a Hebrew teacher in the Israeli Sunday School, Yavneh College, Elite Language Institute and the London Jewish Cultural Centre. She has also taught on the subjects of the history and geography of Israel as a guide and a teacher both in Israel and the UK.
Nimrod Borenstein
holds postgraduate diplomas from the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. He has just been commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra to write a new orchestral work to be premiered at the Royal Festival Hall under the baton of Maestro Vladimir Ashkenazy in June 2013. Nimrod Borenstein's compositions are gaining a worldwide reputation with performances throughout Europe, Canada, Australia and the U.S.A.
Zvia Bowman
was born in Beijing, China and her family was the last Jewish family to leave China in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution. She obtained her B.A. in East Asian Studies and International Relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her M.A. and PhD were in Chinese Literature and she studied at the University of Toronto in Canada. She taught Chinese language and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and King's College, University of London. She is currently teaching Chinese at King's College. She has lectured and written about the Jewish communities in China, especially the Jewish community in Harbin, Manchuria.
Carole Brown
was professor of English literature at Hamline University in St Paul, Minnesota, where she specialized in the English novel. She has published work on Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. Now retired, she divides her time between London and the US.
Stephen Burstin
has been conducting guided tours for 25 years and specialises in the fascinating history and rich heritage of London's Jewish community. He provides an informative and entertaining variety of tours in different districts of the capital and delights in sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm for Jewish London.
Rabbi Mark Daniels
read philosophy at University - and then moved on to a career in academic publishing and the ministry. He was an editor of Philosophy Now and has written articles on Aristotle, Maimonides and Ethics. He is currently Course Director of the Judith Lady Montefiore College at Maida Vale.
Barry Davis
is an actor and lecturer in Jewish History and Yiddish language and literature. He is author of a number of essays on Yiddish writers and Jewish history, and has advised on several films.
Max Diamond
works with the Film and Technology department and is one of the in-house film lecturers. He has an Anglo-French cultural and educational background after having spent most of his life in Paris and New York. He read Philosophy at King's College London and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on his way towards a BA in Film Studies at Columbia.
Alexander Douglas
has recently completed his PhD at Birkbeck College on Spinoza and been appointed Jacobsen Fellow at the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is very interested in the social history of philosophy and the concrete effects that philosophical ideas have had on broader society.
Ronit First-Kavizky
has an MA in Jewish Folklore from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has been a Hebrew teacher in the North Western Reform Synagogue's Cheder and the Clore Shalom school. Ronit has also taught on the subjects of the Holocaust, Israeli History and Jewish Identity both in Israel and the UK.
Adam Ford
is former chaplain at St Paul's Girls School and Priest in Ordinary to the Queen at the Chapel Royal. He has lectured on religion, astronomy, and ethics in schools in New York, Sydney, and Buenos Aires; and on the stars to be seen above Africa's Rift Valley in Kenya. Adam is a regular and popular lecturer at the LJCC.
Harry Freedman
has a PhD in Targum, the ancient Aramaic bible translation, and is a Trustee of Friends of Louis Jacobs. He writes books on topics of Jewish interest including The Gospels Veiled Agenda which discusses the Jewish authorship of the Christian bible and the Church's suppression of the Holy Grail.
Jeremy Freedman
is a well established documentary and commercial photographer that has spent the last 5 years bringing focus to the great diversity that is Spitalfields Life. He specialises in producing photographic narratives and portraits.
Helen Fry
Biographer and historian, Dr Helen Fry has written extensively on the Second World War, as well as Anglo-Jewish history. Her highly acclaimed book Churchill's German Army has received unprecedented national and international coverage, including a documentary of that title for National Geographic Channel.
Hani Gani
worked in education in Israel for a number of years before moving to London. A recent addition to the Centre, Hani has quickly established herself with our students.
Kate Gerrard
is a member of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies advisory council, and was previously the Director of the Galicia Jewish Museum, Krakow (2007-2010). She holds a masters degree in Jewish Studies from Oxford University, and is currently completing her PhD on Jewish museums in Krakow at the University of Birmingham.
Angela Gluck
has worked as a teacher, teacher trainer, LEA adviser, and LEA, Ofsted and Pikuach inspector. She has written over 40 books mainly on aspects of religious and cultural diversity in education and is a frequent radio broadcaster on Jewish and educational subjects.
Trudy Gold
is Executive Director of Education and Holocaust Studies at the London Jewish Cultural Centre and senior lecturer in Jewish history which she has taught for over 25 years. She is editor in chief of the teaching resource pack "Lessons of the Holocaust".
Richard Goldstein
Previously Richard was Director of UJIA Israel Experience and the Director of the Lessons from Auschwitz project at the Holocaust Educational Trust. He originally worked as Director of European Programmes for the Israel Experience department.
Jerold Gotel
is the London Jewish Cultural Centre's Director of Overseas Projects, represents the UK on the International Task Force for Holocaust and Remembrance and is a senior lecturer in Jewish History. Jerold has also been made Associate Professor of Jewish History at the Institute of Jewish Studies at Henan University in China.
Rina Gurvitz
has taught for many years at the Israeli Sunday School and is a welcome addition to our team.
David Herman
produced arts and talks programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Radio 4 for almost twenty years. He writes for Prospect, The Guardian, The Independent, The New Statesman, The Jewish Quarterly, Jewish Renaissance and The Jewish Chronicle.
Peter Higginson
senior Lecturer/Tutor at Christies Education, read History of Art at the University of British Columbia, focusing on American arts of the 1950's and 60's. He gained his doctorate on Caravaggio & representations of poverty in early modern Rome and has published on 'Poverty and Papal Piety in Rome, circa 1600', 'The Pilgrims Experience of Old and New in Early Modern Rome', and catalogue entries on Caravaggio in Rubens and the Renaissance, (Exhibition catalogue, Australia National Gallery), 1992.
Haggit Inbar-Littas
is Executive Director of Languages at the London Jewish Cultural Centre. She was born in Jerusalem, and studied History and Geography at the Hebrew University. She taught Hebrew for 11 years in Paris and has taught at the London Jewish Cultural Centre for more than 18 years.
Catherine James
received her BA Hons in English and German at UEA and then went on to study for a BSc in Music at City University (and Guildhall School of Music). She gained her doctorate at the London Consortium (Tate, ICA and AA), focusing on the theme of gravity in art. She has worked throughout BBC Network Radio for many years and been an Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts since 1999. She has been Book Reviews Editor for Contemporary magazine since 2005.
Paula Kitching
Paula Kitching is an historian (specialising in Genocide and war studies), educational consultant and writer, who has been working with the London Jewish Cultural Centre for over fifteen years. She was an advisor to the Department of Education for over five years and currently works with the Historical Association, the Royal British Legion and HMDT (Holocaust Memorial Day Trust).
Searle Kochberg
is a familiar face at the LJCC for whom he worked for many years. A Principal Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, he has contributed sections to many books on film and documentary, and is a well known academic commentator on Hollywood. Searle has just completed a chapter for a book on promotion in the media world - focusing on Hollywood branding.
Alan Kramer
is an award winning short filmmaker and screenwriter with an MA in Feature Film Screenwriting. He currently lectures at Greenwich University and is developing several feature films and TV projects.
Clive Lawton
Our Scholar in Residence Clive is also an Independent Member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, a magistrate in Haringey, Senior Consultant to Limmud, a freelance management and educational consultant. His creative style of teaching makes him one of our most popular lecturers.
David Leviatin
A Harvard Ph.D. specialising in American social history, specifically the relationship between immigration and culture, David Leviatin is an independent scholar who lives and works in London. He has taught at Harvard University, MIT and Charles University in Prague. His published work includes: Followers of the Trail: Jewish Working-Class Radicals in America (Yale 1989), Prague Sprung: Notes and Voices from the New World, (Praeger, 1993) and an edited volume of Jacob Riis's 1890 classic How the Other Half Lives (Bedford Books, 1996, 2011 2nd ed.).
Dr Bea Lewkowicz
is a social anthropologist and oral historian, she received her PhD from the London School of Economics. Her thesis on the Jewish Community of Salonika was published in 2006. She has co-directed the AJR Refugee Voices Archive and is currently the director of Sephardi Voices UK.
Stuart Libson
a specialist in Jewish related film, is manager of the London Jewish Cultural Centre Film Archive. He began to build the archive in 1994 and it is now the largest collection of Jewish related film material in Europe. Stuart lectures, gives film presentations and provides information and material to film researchers, academics and anyone interested in Jewish archive footage.
Vivien Mazin
is a native Arabic speaker who completed her university degree at a top university in Iraq. She worked for many years in education and has joined the ljcc faculty in September, 2010 teaching Arabic.
Mel and Mike
Mike and Mel have been teaching Lindy Hop, Balboa, Charleston, Blues, Boogie Woogie and authentic Jazz together for 5 years, both at their regular venues and for other swing dance organisations and camps across the UK.
Harry Mount
is a former leader writer and New York correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. His book on Latin, Amo, Amas, Amat and All That was a top 10 bestseller, and he has written books on his time as a libel barrister and a history of British buildings. His new book, How England Made the English, will published in May.
Irene Newton
has an MA in English Literature. She has been a journalist for the New Zealand Jewish Chronicle, a bookshop manager and a writer. As well as running the Ivy House Book circle and Poetry circle, Irene organises our delightful Music Programme.
Sylvia Paskin
is a cultural historian and a writer who has edited several anthologies of new fiction by Jewish writers, Jewish women's poetry and Yiddish film. She has also just completed her first short film.
Antony Polonsky
was Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is chair of the editorial board of Polin:Studies in Polish Jewry and his most recent work is The Jews in Poland and Russia volume 1, 1350-1881; volume 2 1881-1914 (Oxford, 2010). He has been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of Independent Lithuania.
David Rosenberg
is an expert on the East End. His grandparents came to the East End as Jewish immigrants from the Tsarist Russian Empire in the 1900s. They lived in Princelet Street and Hanbury Street off Brick Lane. He is the author of a forthcoming book, Battle for the East End: Jewish responses to fascism in the 1930s.
Vardit Sadeh-Ginzburg
an Israeli by birth, Vardit completed an MA in American Studies. She teaches Hebrew at Immanuel College and is a long standing member of our team.
Linda Samuels
is South African born and divides her time between teaching in London and painting in Cannes. She has won Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in the Cannes Grand Prix and feels passionately that anyone can enjoy creating art.
Calanit Schachner-Laufer
holds a First from Bezalel High Academy for Fine Arts, Jerusalem and an MA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths, London. She has displayed Photographic Projects in over 20 exhibitions at several London galleries. Calanit has extensive experience teaching photography.
Harold Schogger
has been teaching Bridge for 30 years and is a professional teacher with the English Bridge Union. Former bridge correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle and author of Practice your Rule of 11 he has written countless articles over the years for English Bridge and Bridge Plus.
Hagai Segal
is an internationally renowned academic, consultant/analyst and commentator, specialising in the Middle East and related affairs. A regular guest on numerous national and international TV channels and radio stations he also writes for a number of publications around the world. We are delighted that Hagai has agreed to be our scholar in residence this year. Come and hear why.
Ilana Sheli
has worked extensively with children as a group leader, entertainer and childminder for 1-8 year olds, (specialist area 1-3 year olds). Ilana is also a solo singer and with bands, performing, writing and recording original music and old jazz/blues
Angie Simon
Angie's passion for literature and ideas changed the course of her life. Her BA and MA covered a wide range of literature from Shakespeare to Literature in the Modern World. She became increasingly interested in the issues raised by writings about The Holocaust. Her recent Ph.D thesis addresses 'The Problem of the Human in Holocaust Writing' from a philosophical and literary perspective, and deepens the enquiry begun in her MA dissertation 'Themes of Silence in Representations of the Holocaust'.
Ronelle Solomon
born in South Africa, obtained a BA at the University of the Witwatersrand. She trained extensively in the USA and Europe in a broad spectrum of physical disciplines. She is certified by the renowned Pilates Foundation, and also by the Australian Institute of Pilates and Physiotherapy (APPI).
Andrew Spira
graduated from the Courtauld Institute, worked at the Temple Gallery in Holland Park (specialists in Byzantine, Greek and Russian icons) and was a curator at the V&A for several years. He is now a Course Director at Christies Education.
Diana Toeman
is a keen theatregoer and was an audio-describer for visually-impaired playgoers for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Duke of York's Theatre and the Soho Theatre for many years. She hosts our popular Ivy House Playreading Circle every month.
William Tyler MBE
is an experienced adult educator, who loves to share his enthusiasm for history with others. He holds degrees from three British Universities and has held senior positions in adult education, including the post of Principal of The City Literary Institute in London, one of Britain's premier Adult Education Colleges. His recent MBE was awarded for services to adult education.
Julia Weiner
art critic of the Jewish Chronicle since 1993, and lecturer in Art History at Regent's College, London writes and lectures regularly at the LJCC. As well as being our Visual Arts Advisor and the curator of our many and varied exhibitions, she also serves as a museum education consultant, currently working for the V&A and Imperial College.
Michael Whine MBE
Michael Whine is the Director of Government and International Affairs at the Community Security Trust and Director of the Defence and Group Relations Division of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. He is the Consultant on Defence and Security to the European Jewish Congress, and represents it at the OSCE. Michael was awarded an MBE in January 2012 for services to Community Cohesion.
Joshua White
is a professional art historian and lecturer with Christie's Education. He has also been a Lecturer on board P & O's cruise liner The Ventura and a Lecturer and Guide in The History of Art, Design and Visual Culture in the Tate Britain, Tate Modern and The Courtauld Gallery among others.
Professor Robert S. Wistrich
has held the Neuberger Chair of Modern European and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem since 1989. He is author and editor of 25 books, several of which won international prizes. His recent magnum opus A Lethal Obsession: Antisemitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad has been hailed by many commentators as the definitive work on the subject for years to come.
Rina Wolgroh Zolty
studied Education, Criminology and Jewish Studies at Bar-Ilan University, before completing an MA in Hebrew Literature at Ben-Gurion University. She has taught at the London Jewish Cultural Centre for the past 8 years and is in charge of Modern Hebrew A Level at Hasmonean High School.
Leon Yudkin
After lecturing for many years at Manchester University and University College London, Leon Yudkin served as visiting professor at the universities of Paris and Prague. Now a freelance author, he has lectured all over Europe, the USA, South Africa, Australia and Israel. He has written numerous articles on Jewish and Hebrew literature, as well as twelve books, the most recent of which deals with the Prague Circle.
Patricia Zerah Randisi
is an experienced French teacher with a special interest in French Jewish history. Her classes at the LJCC have been very popular and she has built up a loyal following.
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