In the presence of the film director Yves Turquier

Date: Wednesday 24 September 2008

Time: 7.30pm

Venue: Holland Park Synagogue -

8 St James’s Gardens, London W11

Price: £8 / £6 (Full time Students and Spiro Ark membership card holders only)

(La petite histoire des juifs du Liban)

This 77-minute documentary is a rare exploration of one of the smaller Jewish communities of Arab lands. The ruined Beirut synagogue is a forlorn reminder of a once 14,000-strong community driven to extinction. Jews who lived in this Switzerland of the Middle East recall fondly the good times on the shores of the Mediterranean, as well as moments of terror after 1948 when to be a Jew in an Arab country became synonymous with being an Israeli. Although Lebanon was a mosaic of faiths and sects, the fate of the Jews was sealed by civil strife and war. The film also looks at the present Lebanese Jewish Diaspora scattered from Mexico to Israel and France to Brazil.

Discussion to follow