Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub, OM, FRS, Founder and President of Chain of Hope, is one of the world’s greatest, and most famous, surgeons. Born in Egypt in 1935, he studied medicine in Cairo and then London, becoming a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Harefield...
Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels such as 'The Buddha of Suburbia' and 'Intimacy', story collections, plays and screenplays. 'The Buddha of Suburbia' was made into a BBC TV series with a soundtrack by David Bowie. 'My Beautiful Laundrette', a story about a gay...
Dr. Corinne Michaela Flick studied both law and literature, and is Founder and Chair of the Convoco! Foundation. Dr. Flick is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute Germany, Co-Founder of the Friends of the Bavarian State Library, Munich, and a member...
The Improbability of Love You are quite eclectic and your work has ranged from documentary films, to banking, to philanthropy, to biography, and now to a novel. Why do you think you have many different facets? I have that kind of restless, inquisitive mind. It’s...
With great sadness we learn of the death of Shimon Peres, one of Israel's great leaders - a man who devoted his life to serving his country and the world. 28th September, 2016 "Looking back the only mistake we made was not dreaming big enough. Let's dream big, let's...
Primo Levi opened a universal platform with his reflections on human nature. You are the Director and one of the founding members of the Primo Levi Center in New York. What is the purpose of this center? The Center was born in 1998 to sustain the conversation and...
Artists are the leaders of the 21st Century. Ik-Joong Kang is one of South Korea’s most renowned and celebrated multimedia artists. His works are poignant symbols of hope for reunification, particularly of North and South Korea. This September at Robilant+Voena’s...
“In Florence exhibitions on old masters are more successful than exhibitions on contemporary artists!” Eike Schmidt was appointed Director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence by Dario Franceschini, the Italian Minister of Culture. He is the first non-Italian to be...
Hans Rauscher is an author and a journalist at Der Standard, an Austrian national daily broadsheet newspaper that has been published in Vienna since 1988. Austria will re-run a Presidential election on October 2 that could produce the first far-Right Head of State in...
We re-publish this 2014 interview with Elie Wiesel in grateful commemoration of his life and his humanity. Elie has been a longtime friend and an example of Jewish life. I will remember his voice, his words, his love for literature. When together we used to speak...
H.E. Mark Regev is the Ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom since April 2016. He was the chief spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel from 2007 to 2015. You have been Ambassador in the UK for a few months and had to face the Livingstone affair, when the...
The planetary architect of today delivers a well considered response to human, cultural and geographic diversity. The leading architect David Adjaye OBE set up his first office in 1994, where his ingenious use of materials and his sculptural ability established him as...
Consequences of a Brexit. Dr Robin Niblett CMG is Director of Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, one of the world’s most influential policy institutes. The University of Pennsylvania Global Think Tank Index 2015 ranked them number one in...
Ban Ki-moon is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations. When I go to see him, I am accompanied to the 38th floor of the United Nations building with very little formality. It is October 2007. There is a large room with many photographs and leather chairs....
The Italian Cultural Institute of New York is an office of the Italian government, dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture in the United States through the organisation of cultural events. You have now been Director of the Italian Cultural Institute...
Napoleon intended Brera Pinacoteca to be the Louvre of Italy. Dr. James M. Bradburne is a British-Canadian architect, designer and museum specialist who is the newly appointed Director General of Pinacoteca di Brera e Biblioteca nazionale Braidense in Milan. His aim...
"Trump has no experience of politics. The US people want outsiders." Dr. Geoffrey Garrett is Dean, Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise, and Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (PENN). Wharton was founded...
The Music and Energy of Poems. Why is "Widening Income Inequality" the title of your new collection of poems, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and coming out in America now? The title is used with some considerable irony. It is a very common phrase, used by...
Antisemitism is a societal disease. Professor Manuela Consonni is Director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism in Jerusalem Professor Consonni, can you tell us about your new prestigious role at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University as...
How is it to be back at the National Gallery, now as the Director? Thrilling, after 13 years away. I have been devoted to the institution since I was a child and it is very exciting to be here at this moment. Why? First of all the sheer beauty and quality of the...
Faith doesn’t generate hate. Ruth Dureghello is president of Rome’s Jewish community. Last Sunday, before Pope Francis, Chief Rabbi Disegni, and the entire Roman Jewish community which had gathered at the Great Synagogue to welcome the pontiff, you said, “With this...
Mr Disegni, you were recently appointed president of MEIS (which is the foundation behind the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Holocaust) by the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities, Dario Franceschini. You’ve taken over from writer Riccardo Calimani...
"Gardens are really a drop of paradise on earth." Among his many public and private projects, the leading contemporary gardener and landscape architect Louis Benech was commissioned to reshape the Tuileries public gardens which are located between the Louvre Museum...
"Every decision we make is based on what it means for the next five years." You have been the Chief Executive of Schroders PLC for 14 years. Can you describe Schroders? It is one of the oldest merchant banks in London. It started in 1804 and has evolved over two...
A project to revitalise Italian art. You are the President of the Rome Quadrennial Foundation... Yes. It is an institution that was started back in 1927 to promote Italian art. Because there was already the Venice Biennial, it was deemed necessary to create an event...
Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. Since July you are the new Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. How come you made this role your choice when you are a well-known and active photographer? Photography was and is something too...
The interview with the Patriarch took place at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. He was with a Jewish and an Arab friend. What is your role of Patriarch? The concept of Patriarch is associated with sacred history, the history of salvation that began in Mount Sinai...
The British relationship with the European Union is of fundamental importance for the future. Lord Mandelson arrives at our appointment on his bicycle in London during September 2013 , as usual very elegant, in his weekend clothes. He orders a very hot chocolate and a...
Overwhelmed by Syrian refugees, as it has already been by the Palestinians for half a century, the Hashemite Kingdom is on the front line of the Syrian crisis. War in Syria, terrorism, refugee crisis, Eastern Christians ... Alain made the following interview with the...
"A New Renaissance for Medicine." Dr. Virgilio Sacchini is a surgeon who specializes in the treatment of breast cancer. He will be attending a meeting in Florence on October 15 and 16, 2015, at the Gabinetto Scientifico Letterario G.P. Vieusseux. The meeting will be...
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Money Must Stay in the Family
The plot of Money Must Stay in the Family, unfolds around the family matriarch’s last will and traces the story of an upper class Jewish family from Turin, the fictional Ottolenghis. The multigenerational saga begins with the flight from Mussolini’s Racial Laws of 1938 and continues with the arrival in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the dispersion from New York to Rome, Paris, Tuscany, South America, and Jerusalem.
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