Former mayor Jacques Wallage interviews writer Ronit Palache in Groningen synagogue about Jewish identity

Journalist and author Ronit Palache will be a guest in the synagogue in Groningen on Sunday 11 September. She is interviewed by former mayor Jacques Wallage of Groningen about her book ‘Ontroerende nonsense’.

In Touching Nonsense, the Jewish identity in the Netherlands today (2016, Prometheus Publishers) Palache shows the complexity of Judaism. She does this on the basis of interviews with more than a hundred Jewish Dutch people. For most of them, God plays a small role. Yet they are all Jewish. Although Dutch Jewry is also divided.

Ronit Palache

Ronit Palache (1984) studied journalism and worked as a journalist at Weekblad Elsevier. She edited the radio program Šimek at night and worked for ten years at Publisher Prometheus. Palache published na Touching Nonsense two more books: I have nothing against anti-Semites, I live by it (2020) and Scared people don’t ask questions (2020).

Jacques Wallage

Jacques Wallage (1946) is a descendant of a Jewish-Groningen middle class family. He studied sociology and planning. Wallage was, among other things, a member of the House of Representatives, State Secretary for Education and mayor of Groningen from 1998 to 2009.

European Day of Jewish Culture

As part of the European Day of Jewish Culture 2022, the synagogue in Groningen is open for free visits on Sunday 11 September from 12:00 to 15:00. Jacques Wallage’s (also free) interview with Ronit Palache starts at 3 p.m.

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