Speaker Biographies:
Taj Ali is a journalist and historian. He is the former editor of Tribune Magazine and author of Come What May, We’re Here to Stay: the Story of South Asian Resistance in Britain
David Rosenberg is an educator, writer, and tour guide of London’s radical history who has taught at Bishopsgate Institute and other adult education institutions for several years. He is a grandchild of Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine who settled in the East End of London. In the 1980s he worked for projects and organisations concerned with race equality, including the Runnymede Trust.
David Rosenberg is the author of Battle for the East End (2011) and Rebel Footprints (3rd edition 2026), and has written articles on London’s social history and current affairs for various print and online publications, including the Guardian, New Statesman, Time Out, Jewish Quarterly, and Channel 4’s History website.
Nurjahan Julie Begum was born and brought up in Tower Hamlets. Julie started youth and community work in 1986 and, from 1992, went onto teaching adults English for Speakers of Other Languages including refugees and asylum seekers with Praxis community projects ltd. In 2002 she began working in the heritage sector in London and in 2017 started work in adult social care.
Julie has written about the Bengali Language Movement, The World in the East End at the V&A Museum of Childhood and a bi-lingual play The Altab Ali Story, which was dramatised in the Season of Bangla Drama.
In 2000 she helped set up the Swadhinata Trust which has published various original research publications about Bengalis contributions to the UK and, in 2017, received the Award for Outstanding Service to the Community.