Words for All
Leeds Literary Festival
Jackie Passman
A Cool Head in Hell
Harry Silman was a medical officer with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in WW2. He served first with the BEF in France and Belgium, and was present at the retreat from Dunkirk. Twenty months later he was one of the many prisoners captured by the Japanese when Singapore fell in 1942. A Cool Head in Hell is based on his objective, often distressing but occasionally humorous diary which recorded the deprivations of Changi camp, the unbelievable hardships for the POWs who built the Thai-Burma railway and the Jewish life that flourished despite it all. Harry describes how he started Friday night services in a variety of makeshift venues, and the inventive ways they celebrated the Festivals.
Harry’s daughter, Jackie Passman, was a teacher of Hebrew & Jewish Studies at Deborah Taylor Nursery school before teaching English and French in mainstream schools. She later retrained to teach deaf children. With her husband Michael, she managed the BHH Synagogue Bookshop for 20 years. She does regular shul and school visits for children and adults learning about Judaism, and gives talks in schools on the Jewish home and way of life. The discovery of her father’s diaries initiated her interest in the war in the Far East in WW2, an area far less well-known than the war in Europe.
Charles Harris
Play me!
PLAY ME!
FINALIST – PAGE TURNER AWARDS 2025
AxMan Flyn is desperate to make his mark.
A hapless Jewish rock-star, real name Benjamin Goldstein, his career has been fading for too long. So, he grabs a chance to front a high-profile charity concert in the Caribbean, promote himself and hopefully do some good in the world. But hardly has he arrived than he stumbles in on the assassination of the island’s president in a coup. And, to his horror, the new gangster-president frames him as the killer.
Condemned to death, AxMan goes on the run, chased by a police force which is determined to stop him revealing the truth.
A real softie, despite a tough stage image, he is forced to come out of his shell and fight for his life. And the only person who can help him is another gangster.
But of course nothing is ever straightforward and AxMan’s pride and hunger for fame keeps getting in the way – along with his over-eager fans.
Play Me! is a heavy-metal comedy crime novel. If stories of fish out of water, unlikely heroes and twisty plots strike a chord with you, you’ll love this rollicking tale where celebrity rock meets a dangerous underworld of violent mobsters, desperate guerrillas and unscrupulous politicians – and death is on the playlist.
Charles Harris is a best-selling author and international award-winning writer-director for film and TV. His debut novel, the tabloid-based dark comedy The Breaking of Liam Glass took first place on Amazon’s Hot New Releases for satire and was nominated for two literary awards.
His second, the psychological thriller Room Fifteen, was also an Amazon best-seller in its genre. While his movie Paradise Grove won Best New Director and Best Jewish Film in Palm Springs and was hailed by the Jewish Chronicle as the “Anglo-Jewish Comedy of the Year.”
He has appeared on BBC TV and radio, and written and directed for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, as well as freelance work for national and local newspapers and magazines, and co-founded the first screenwriters workshop in the world, London Screenwriters Workshop, now Euroscript.
He has a wife, who lives with him in Hampstead, and two sons, who don’t.
Tamar Hodes
Mixed
Mixed is Tamar Hodes’s third and latest novel, published in March 2025 by Legend Press. It explores what happens to families when members take different Jewish or non-Jewish routes. Sisters Ruth and Miriam have trod very different paths. Ruth lives in north London, is married to Jewish Simon, their three children go to Jewish schools and and the family is very involved with the shul. Miriam lives in the Midlands, is married to non-Jewish Chris, their children attend a mixed school and Miriam is on the edges of the shul. This causes friction between them and for their long-suffering parents, Harold and Evelyn. Something major happens. Will the family be torn apart or will the sisters put aside their differences for the sake of family harmony? But the novel is not all doom and gloom. There is music, joy, humour and love. Mixed has been longlisted for the Comedy Women in Print award 2025.
Tamar was born in Irsael to South African parents, lived on Hydra for a year with her parents who were part of the artistic community including Leonard Cohen (the subject of her second novel The Water and the Wine) and then came to the UK aged five. She grew up in north London and studied English and Education at Homerton College, Cambridge. She taught English for 35 years and is now retired. Tamar is married with three grandchildren. She lives in Hampshire. Her three novels are Raffy’s Shapes, The Water and the Wine and Mixed. Her stories have been broadcast on Radio 4 and included in anthologies such as A Treasury of Jewish Stories.
Harry Freedman
Bob Dylan arrived in New York City one winter morning in 1961. His music and spirit would go on to have a huge impact on popular music for decades. What hardly anyone knew then was that—like so many before him—Dylan was concealing his Jewish origins. He had been born Robert Allen Zimmerman to Jewish parents in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941. Dylan’s instincts for escape and reinvention have helped shape his long career, says author Harry Freedman, who explores how Dylan’s musical decisions, genius for reinvention, and Jewish roots go hand in hand.
Harry Freedman is Britain’s leading author of best-selling, popular works of Jewish culture and history. His publications include Shylock’s Venice, Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius, The Talmud: A Biography and Britain’s Jews. His forthcoming book (May 2025) is Bob Dylan: Jewish Roots, American Soil. He lives in London with his wife Karen. He writes weekly articles about Jewish history on harryfreedman.substack.com.
Jackie Passman
A Cool Head in Hell
Charles Harris
Play me!
PLAY ME!
FINALIST – PAGE TURNER AWARDS 2025
AxMan Flyn is desperate to make his mark.
A hapless Jewish rock-star, real name Benjamin Goldstein, his career has been fading for too long. So, he grabs a chance to front a high-profile charity concert in the Caribbean, promote himself and hopefully do some good in the world. But hardly has he arrived than he stumbles in on the assassination of the island’s president in a coup. And, to his horror, the new gangster-president frames him as the killer.
Condemned to death, AxMan goes on the run, chased by a police force which is determined to stop him revealing the truth.
A real softie, despite a tough stage image, he is forced to come out of his shell and fight for his life. And the only person who can help him is another gangster.
But of course nothing is ever straightforward and AxMan’s pride and hunger for fame keeps getting in the way – along with his over-eager fans.
Play Me! is a heavy-metal comedy crime novel. If stories of fish out of water, unlikely heroes and twisty plots strike a chord with you, you’ll love this rollicking tale where celebrity rock meets a dangerous underworld of violent mobsters, desperate guerrillas and unscrupulous politicians – and death is on the playlist.
Charles Harris is a best-selling author and international award-winning writer-director for film and TV. His debut novel, the tabloid-based dark comedy The Breaking of Liam Glass took first place on Amazon’s Hot New Releases for satire and was nominated for two literary awards.
His second, the psychological thriller Room Fifteen, was also an Amazon best-seller in its genre. While his movie Paradise Grove won Best New Director and Best Jewish Film in Palm Springs and was hailed by the Jewish Chronicle as the “Anglo-Jewish Comedy of the Year.”
He has appeared on BBC TV and radio, and written and directed for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, as well as freelance work for national and local newspapers and magazines, and co-founded the first screenwriters workshop in the world, London Screenwriters Workshop, now Euroscript.
He has a wife, who lives with him in Hampstead, and two sons, who don’t.
Tamar Hodes
Mixed
Mixed is Tamar Hodes’s third and latest novel, published in March 2025 by Legend Press. It explores what happens to families when members take different Jewish or non-Jewish routes. Sisters Ruth and Miriam have trod very different paths. Ruth lives in north London, is married to Jewish Simon, their three children go to Jewish schools and and the family is very involved with the shul. Miriam lives in the Midlands, is married to non-Jewish Chris, their children attend a mixed school and Miriam is on the edges of the shul. This causes friction between them and for their long-suffering parents, Harold and Evelyn. Something major happens. Will the family be torn apart or will the sisters put aside their differences for the sake of family harmony? But the novel is not all doom and gloom. There is music, joy, humour and love. Mixed has been longlisted for the Comedy Women in Print award 2025.
Tamar was born in Irsael to South African parents, lived on Hydra for a year with her parents who were part of the artistic community including Leonard Cohen (the subject of her second novel The Water and the Wine) and then came to the UK aged five. She grew up in north London and studied English and Education at Homerton College, Cambridge. She taught English for 35 years and is now retired. Tamar is married with three grandchildren. She lives in Hampshire. Her three novels are Raffy’s Shapes, The Water and the Wine and Mixed. Her stories have been broadcast on Radio 4 and included in anthologies such as A Treasury of Jewish Stories.
Harry Freedman
Bob Dylan arrived in New York City one winter morning in 1961. His music and spirit would go on to have a huge impact on popular music for decades. What hardly anyone knew then was that—like so many before him—Dylan was concealing his Jewish origins. He had been born Robert Allen Zimmerman to Jewish parents in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941. Dylan’s instincts for escape and reinvention have helped shape his long career, says author Harry Freedman, who explores how Dylan’s musical decisions, genius for reinvention, and Jewish roots go hand in hand.
Harry Freedman is Britain’s leading author of best-selling, popular works of Jewish culture and history. His publications include Shylock’s Venice, Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius, The Talmud: A Biography and Britain’s Jews. His forthcoming book (May 2025) is Bob Dylan: Jewish Roots, American Soil. He lives in London with his wife Karen. He writes weekly articles about Jewish history on harryfreedman.substack.com.