That Precious Strand of Jewishness That Challenges Authority

Like so many of those others in Britain of Jewish lineage, songwriter and award-winning folk singer Leon Rosselson is descended from antecedents who fled pogroms in eastern Europe. Pertinently, he questions what being a Jew means—is it adherence to Judaism as a religion, an ethnicity, a citizen of Israel, or someone who eats “chicken soup with knedlach?" He describes clearly and with historical insight how any concept of “Jewishness” can involve all of those things and more.

Leon Rosselson has been at the forefront of songwriting in Britain for over five decades. He has published two songbooks and released thirteen CDs plus a four-CD box set of seventy-two songs spanning fifty years of songwriting. He has also had seventeen children's books published, the first of which, Rosa's Singing Grandfather, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.