The Leo Baeck Institute London will be well represented at the British Association for Jewish Studies (BIAJS) 2026 conference, which takes place next week at Birkbeck, University of London. The programme brings together papers on Jewish space, history, memory and identity.
Among those speaking are Nathanel Stawski, current LBI Fellow, who will present ‘From Reluctant to Radical Revolutionaries: Zionism and the Late 19th Century Crisis of Liberalism’; Daniel Lichman, our PhD student, who will speak on ‘Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Kitchens and Cars: Rabbi Lionel Blue’s Radio Congregation’; Katharina Hadassah Wendl, our intern, with ‘“And our scribes do so”: The place of minhag in scribal handbooks of the 19th century’; and LBI Lecture Series speaker Professor Tony Kushner, who will present ‘Space, place and race. Edward Thomas and a Jewish murderer’.
We are also pleased to see colleagues from our wider network taking part in the conference in chairing roles. Dr Anna Hájková, a former Fellow, will chair a session; Professor David Feldman will chair Rethinking the Cousinhood: Anglo-Jewish elites; and Sonia Gollance will chair Radical Revolutionaries: Zionism and the Late 19th Century Crisis of Liberalism.
The programme shows the range of current Jewish studies and the way it brings questions of space, displacement, ritual and memory into conversation. We will be following the conference with interest and hope to share highlights from the sessions in the days ahead.
