Festival of the Spoken Word was never just a literary festival. From the moment the program was announced, it was clear that music would be at its core — not as accompaniment, but as a primary language for telling Jewish stories.

Across seven events, audiences encountered music in forms that ranged from contemporary classical piano to Middle Eastern instrumentation, Yiddish song, live poetry and music, choral prayer, and semi-staged musical theatre. Here is what sounded across August.

Fugitive — Simon Tedeschi AM

For Fugitive, a Kawai grand piano was brought into Bondi Pavilion — an instrument that became the heartbeat of Simon Tedeschi AM’s collision of memoir and music. Tedeschi, one of Australia’s most distinctive pianists and writers, spoke with SBS Hebrew about what happens when a book becomes a live performance: how combining music and spoken text on stage creates something a page simply cannot replicate. Listen to the interview.

Hineinu: Songs for This Time — Nadav Kahn

Sydney-based singer-songwriter, producer, music therapist, and meditation teacher Nadav Kahn created Hineinu in the aftermath of the Bondi attack. After the terror attack at the Hanukkah celebration, Kahn ran to the beach searching for his wife and young daughter, who had been there. In the days that followed, he began writing Hineinu as a way of processing what had happened through music.

The result was a Hybrid Performance — Music, Prayer and Spoken Word — that brought together a range of acoustics instruments in an evening that moved between grief, prayer, and presence. Listen to Nadav’s SBS Hebrew interview.

One of a Kind

One of a Kind opened the festival with a semi-staged musical. The story was brought to life highlighting Jewish musical heritage with percussion, flute, nai, cello, keyboard, oud, and guitar — a sonic world built from the traditions of Jews from Arab lands. Created by Jewish Arts, the work traces a wealthy Egyptian Jewish family’s displacement from Alexandria in 1957 and their rebuilding of life in Sydney — a story that is part of the rich and varied tapestry of Australian Jewish experience.

Out of the Depths

In 1945, researchers documenting the experiences of Jewish refugees began collecting songs written and sung in Nazi camps and ghettos, preserving fragments of music that might otherwise have disappeared. Drawn from Mima’amakim (Out of the Depths), one of the earliest collections of Holocaust songs, these performances by Joseph Toltz, Cantor Zvi Teichtahl, CHUTNEY Band and Lara Goodridge brought those works to life through live performance alongside stories of the composers, lyricists and the remarkable effort to preserve their voices.

Joseph Toltz and Anna Boucher shared the story behind these remarkable songs and the effort to preserve them. Together, music and storytelling revealed how creativity became a form of witness, endurance and human expression.

Who By Water — Anita Lester

Who By Water sat at the collision of poetry and live music — a hybrid performance that wove language and sound into something neither could achieve alone.

Groyse Tsores

Created by Galit Klas, Adam Starr, and Rivke Margolis, Groyse Tsores brought Yiddish song into unexpected territory — part visual theatre, part creative development, part comedy. Adam Starr’s musical composition and performance gave the work its sonic spine, rooting it in Yiddish musical tradition while pushing it somewhere entirely contemporary.

On Having Been Here — Alexis Fishman

Directed by Alexis Fishman and featuring Judi Hall, Rosalie Fishman, and Michael Leibowitz, On Having Been Here sat at the intersection of poetry and music — a Performance that asked what it means to have been present, to have witnessed, and to find the words and sounds that hold that experience.

Across August, Festival of the Spoken Word demonstrated that Jewish stories do not live on the page alone. They live in sound — in a grand piano carried into a pavilion, in an oud, in Yiddish song, in music written in the days after terror and performed for a community still finding its way through.

Read more

Festival of the Spoken Word was covered across print, digital, and radio — by the Australian Jewish News, The Jewish Independent, J-Wire, Books+Publishing, SBS Hebrew Radio, and Eastside FM.

• New Festival of the Spoken Word brings Jewish stories to life — The Jewish Independent
• Egyptian Jewish story hits the stage in Sydney — Australian Jewish News
• New Festival of the Spoken Word Brings Jewish Stories to Life – The Jewish Independent

• https://eastsidefm.org/artsthursday/episodes/2026-07-16-1030am/
• https://www.sbs.com.au/language/hebrew/en/podcast-episode/spoken-word-festival-with-simon-tedeschi-am-creator-of-fugitive/3gxxlwbq5
• https://www.sbs.com.au/language/hebrew/en/podcast-episode/in-conversation-with-judy-campbell-co-creator-of-the-show-one-of-a-kind/xmz8zx9hb

• https://www.sbs.com.au/language/hebrew/en/podcast-episode/spoken-word-festival-with-simon-tedeschi-am-creator-of-fugitive/477n09yee
• The Spoken Word Festival: Where Stories Take the Stage — SBS Hebrew

Festival of the Spoken Word is presented by Sydney Jewish Writers Festival, created by Shalom Collective. With thanks to Waverly Council, Woollahra Council, The Australian Jewish News, Gertrude & Alice Café Bookstore, Multicultural NSW, Adina Chippendale Sydney and our funding partner JCA.

Shalom Collective creates contemporary Jewish experiences that celebrate culture, deepen identity, and build a thriving community.

Through immersive art, food, festivals and intergenerational storytelling, we bring people together in joyful, meaningful, and imaginative ways.