Jennifer Lipman

Jennifer Lipman is a freelance journalist living in London, writing about current affairs, politics, culture and society. She tweets @jenlipman

Latest from Jennifer Lipman

Books

Judy Blume’s story, told lovingly and in exhaustive detail – but without her input

This is a lovingly delivered portrait but it feels too often like a sanitised version of the writer’s life

2 min read

Pulling back the curtain: Simon Weisz (a pseudonym) and his mother c.1959

Himmler’s Curtains: How my survivor mother ended up living in a Nazi leader’s house

2 min read

Shushu review: ‘Motherhood, warts and all, beautiful, ugly and true’

1 min read

Sex, lies and terrorists

1 min read

If you wanted something done in Jewish Europe 300 years ago, who did you ask?

The findings of this excellent work of scholarship will likely not surprise all readers of this newspaper...

3 min read

February 4, 2026 12:46

Leading the way: Kaplan and Carlebach's new book, and Jewish women dancing at the Jews' Infant School charity ball at Willis's Rooms in London in 1872

The Jewish woman who parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe

Jennifer Lipman meets the author of a new book about Zionist paratrooper and poet Hannah Senesh

6 min read

January 9, 2026 14:13

Jewish Joan of Arc: Hannah Senesh and Douglas Century with his book Crash of Heavens

2025 in review: Books

Our critics’ stand-out Jewish books of the year include eviscerating fiction, assiduously researched history, memoirs and reflections on the lives of poets

7 min read

December 24, 2025 12:47

The Lobbyist review: A fun yarn of bribery, corruption and bonkfests galore

Lionel Zetter’s novel captures the rapacious spirit of Britain’s political centre

1 min read

November 20, 2025 16:06

The Lobbyist review: A fun yarn of bribery, corruption and bonkfests galore

I Wanted to be Wonderful review: The trials and tribulations of motherhood laid bare

This novel by Lihi Lapid follows two parallel stories to weave a heart-rending portrait of marriage and domesticity

1 min read

October 21, 2025 12:41

I Wanted to be Wonderful review: The trials and tribulations of motherhood laid bare

Rooms for Vanishing review: ‘bogged down by its ambitious concept’

The prose is beautiful, but this novel about how the Holocaust has shaped our modern lives is sometimes so hard to follow in a linear fashion, it becomes bewildering

2 min read

August 21, 2025 18:22

Rooms for Vanishing review: ‘bogged down by its ambitious concept’

Summer 2025 reading: the hottest books

You don’t need to be going abroad to be transported to distant shores with our pick of the summer’s best holiday reads. From courtroom dramas to wartime love stories, Jennifer Lipman has you covered.

4 min read

July 25, 2025 11:16

Is your child anxious? Vanessa Feltz’s daughter can help

Saskia Joss on her new book and why we are our children’s security guard

7 min read

June 6, 2025 14:41

Talk to me: Saskia Joss and her new book

Chutzpah review: ‘The strictly Orthodox rebel who had every reason to leave her community, but who chose to stay’

In her new memoir, Yehudis Fletcher writes compellingly about arranged marriage, parental neglect and sexual abuse in Charedi Judaism

2 min read

June 5, 2025 15:14

Noble Fragments by Michael Visontay, review: ‘two stories in one book’

This gripping expedition into an arcane world of book collectors and their eccentric passions papers over an even more intriguing yarn about family history

2 min read

May 9, 2025 14:33