Third NGG Conference: 'Voice, Narrative, (Self-)Representation'

UCL’s Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, fittingly named after the JHSE’s former president Gustave Tuck (1857—1942), hosted the New Generation Group’s annual conference on Monday 11th of May 2026. The NGG is the Jewish Historical Society’s network of emerging scholars of Jewish history. Entitled Voice, Narrative, and (Self-)Representation, this was the NGG’s third conference, following the inaugural conference at Queen Mary University of London and last year’s event at the Parkes Institute, University of Southampton.

The conference brought together international researchers to explore questions of how Jewish communities, individuals, and scholars narrate themselves and are narrated by others. More than 50 participants joined us throughout the day. The papers spanned centuries and continents, from eighteenth-century Galicia to interwar Paris, from Bradford's Reform synagogues to New York City's Sephardic dance halls, and from the testimony of Holocaust survivors to the signage of Ben Gurion Airport during war. Collectively, the papers explored who gets to speak, in what language, to whom, and on whose terms.

The conference was kicked off with introductory words from Prof. Michael Berkowitz, Professor of Modern Jewish History, who delved into the shared history of UCL and the JHSE. In the first panel, Brian Reeves talked about the fragmentary history of Jewish presence in provincial England, specifically East Anglia between 1810 and 1840. He traced how historical documents about the ritual of brit milah and the burial ground at Ipswich form a fragmented narrative of communal life, gendered labour, and marginality. Exploring the historical and contemporary (mis)representations of the Bradford Reform Jewish Community, Sophia Lambert argued that research into the Jewish community’s archival sources and cemetery revealed that Jewish life thrived in Bradford during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jewish and German traditions were upheld, and religious education was provided for the next generation. Moving into more recent Jewish history, Anna Perceval examined photographic practices of Jewish young people in the London East End between the 1930s and 1970s. Drawing on the collections of the Brady Youth Clubs, her research highlighted the construction of narratives within photographic collections and the role of vernacular photography in preserving micro-histories.

The second session centred around museums, performance and public memory. Estie Gordon analysed notions of authority, voice and memory in the Jewish Museum of Buenos Aires and explored how political and communal discourse on Jewish identity and the wider Argentine history influenced the museum’s curation and thematic focuses. Teresa Klimowicz analysed how local Polish museums narrate Jewish presence and absence within broader local histories. Justyna Biernat introduced us to her theatre play Halinka and her historical and dramaturgic considerations when writing and staging a play on Jewish microhistory based on Holocaust testimonies and historical research. Sari Alfi-Nissan reflected on notions of identity and belonging at Israel’s International Airport in the wake of October 7th and during the ensuing military conflicts, showing how the liminal character of airports, expressed through visual and linguistic practices, can be used to construct and negotiate narratives of Jewish continuity, exile, and return.

After a lunch break, the third panel focused on biography, life-writing and self-fashioning. Agi Erdos analysed the memoirs of the Galician wine merchant Dov Ber Birkenthal of Bolekhov (18th century), who travelled through Eastern Galicia and Hungary and left behind detailed accounts of his life, social and commercial interactions, and his engagement with the secular world. John Reed Spiers led us into the life of the philosopher Rachel Bespaloff and her network of French-Russian philosophers, arguing that her fragmented and at times distorted reception illustrates the challenges of intellectual remembrance and canon formation in twentieth-century Jewish and European thought. Martin Borýsek’s comparative study of the works of the Jewish Venetians Leone Modena and Simone Luzzato illuminated their engagement with the wider non-Jewish world and showed how they sought to explain Judaism to non-Jews and articulated the social and economic contributions of Jewish communities to the Venetian state. Gabriela Orozco presented a close reading of a letter to the editor published in the New York Ladino newspaper Las Ižas Sefardit in 1919. The letter highlighted the relationships, identities, norms, and expectations that shaped the lives of young Sephardic men and women in New York City. 

The final session focused on textual scholarship, with Sarah Grabiner analysing representation and mediation in British Hebrew-English prayer books. Ali Langroudi examined Judeo-Persian manuscripts of Hebrew Bibles and the copying and editing strategies of their scribes. Rodion Knyazev discussed Jewish and Christian textual sources about dietary laws. Michal Issachar engaged us in a textual encounter with Viktor Frankl and Martin Buber on Jewish identity and thought after the Holocaust.

The conference concluded with a keynote lecture by Paris Chrononakis, jointly organised with the Institute for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL. In it, he explored Jewish identities from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state, 1876–1922. The third NGG conference was marked by a high academic standard, and feedback from both speakers and participants was overwhelmingly positive. The breadth of career stages, institutions, and interests represented gave the day a vibrant and collegial atmosphere.  

We were especially pleased to welcome not only emerging researchers as presenters and audience members, but also established scholars who generously shared their expertise and feedback. We are particularly grateful to Prof. Michael Berkowitz, who hosted us and encouraged scholars to get involved in the JHSE. We were excited to welcome the many JHSE members who attended to learn about the latest research in Jewish history. Finally, we extend our thanks to Rosalie Gabay Bernheim and the rest of the NGG committee for their work in organising a stimulating and successful conference.

Please stay tuned for our academic programming of the coming year and our next conference for graduate and post-doctoral researchers. We would be delighted to have you with us.

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Katharina Wendl is a PhD student and works for the research project Materialized Holiness at Freie Universität Berlin, which explores Jewish scribal tradition from halakhic, palaeographic, and historical perspectives. She lives in London and is co-chair of the NGG.