Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?, by Anthony Clavane: exclusive launch event at Wivenhoe village bookshop
Anthony Clavane, award-winning author of Promised Land: A Northern Love Story, is to make a personal appearance at the independent Wivenhoe Bookshop in the Essex village of the same name next Tuesday to talk about his new book, Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here? One of the themes of Promised Land was the development of the Jewish community in Leeds and their involvement with Leeds United. In Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here? Clavane expands on that theme to investigate the Jewish influence on English football on a much wider scale, from the earliest Jewish footballers to the businessmen who helped transform the sport from a working class diversion to the status it now enjoys as a multi-million pound branch of the entertainment industry. Football has a long association with the Jewish business world and current club owners Roman Abramovich (Chelsea), Randy Lerner (Aston Villa) and the Glazer family (Manchester United) are only its latest high profile representatives.