There are a few biographical details about Professor Robert Wistrich that people tend to overlook when evaluating the work of someone who is arguably the world’s foremost authority on antisemitism.

Before he reached 19, Andrew Feldman was forced to accept that he was addicted to gambling. On his 18th birthday, he started playing on an online poker site and soon he was making in a day what he earned in a year doing his paper round. The winnings mounted up. Within nine months he had made £100,000. Then one crazy night he lost all of it. He found he was simply unable to stop playing.

In a vain attempt to maintain his normally even temper, my father would begin a long drive in our Rover 75, or indeed any tedious activity likely to last more than two hours, by presenting each of his children with an I-Spy book. Readers who grew up in 1960s Britain will recall I-Spy books.

Ian Golding has never really liked asking questions about his family history. He just was not interested.

“My dad tried many times to tell me about it, but like a lot of people from my generation I could never be bothered to listen,” admits Ian, who felt that “from somewhere in Poland” was all he needed to know about his roots.

Fourteen years ago, on January 20 1998, Chaim Bermant — still the most celebrated of all JC writers — died suddenly, a month short of his 69th birthday. This was a death that not only brought grief to his family and close friends but one that delivered a blow to an entire community.

Saturday September 8 1962
“Today is my 10th birthday and Daddy and I drove to Coney Island together. It was just him and me and we went on all the scary rides. We rode the horses on the Steeplechase, did the parachute jump, went up on the Wonder Wheel and the rollercoaster, and we had Nathan’s hot dogs. We just had the greatest time ever.”

A lone with two small sons in Ramat Gan, after my husband was called up in the Lebanon war in 1982, I had never felt more isolated. The invasion, officially named Operation Peace for Galilee, had been triggered by the assassination attempt in London on the Israeli ambassador, Shlomo Argov.

If you feel like watching a feature film by a British Jewish film-maker there is plenty of choice — you could watch one of the many movies made by Mike Leigh, John Schlesinger, Michael Winner or several other directors of note. But should you wish to see films featuring British Jewish characters or with a Jewish theme, there is considerably less choice.

The production of The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London is going to be a tense affair, and not just because Shylock is determined to get his pound of flesh. As Israel’s Habima theatre company prepares its contribution to the international Globe-to-Globe Shakespeare festival, anti-Israel protesters are preparing to stop the show.

As Londoners and West End tourists are all too aware, Leicester Square has been having a facelift. This week the hoardings will finally come down and the square, unveiled by London mayor Boris Johnson, will take on its new role as "the entertainment gateway to the West End".