Alan Gold: 1945-2024
Alan Gold was a man of words. His professional life was filled with them, with over 20 books, countless book reviews, columns, and speeches to his name.
Alan Gold
Throughout his life, Alan wrote, lectured, and taught about seemingly disparate subjects, all linked by a common theme: the power of storytelling and the influence it wields.
Alan was born in Leicester, England, on August 13, 1945, as the forces of fascism were receding with World War II coming to a close. Trained as a journalist, he gained skills and attitudes that served him well throughout his life. His time working as a foreign correspondent provided him with an often-unseen view of how policy impacts people on the ground.
In 1970, he moved to Australia to marry his wife, Eva, working in public relations and marketing. It was during this time that he began to raise his family, beginning with his first son Julian, who would inspire his first novel, The Pregnant Father, and following two years late, his daughter Georgina,. The sudden loss of Julian at age 9 was a trauma for the entire family, and the later births of his two sons Jonathan and Raffe brought renewed joy and hope. Despite the profound grief, Alan’s resilience and love for his family remained unwavering, and he channeled his experience into his writing, creating deeply personal and poignant works that resonated across languages as he works were translated throughout the world.
His novels served as vehicles to educate and inform his audiences about myriads of subjects—from Nazi Germany and the Stalinist purges to how the seeds of modern conflicts are sown throughout history. Through his characters and plot lines, Alan explored the often forgotten, human elements of history—dispossession and the plight of refugees, finding community through shared trauma, and the impacts of individuals, who were not in the forefront of history.
Alan practised these values and concerns through his communal, political, and social activism. Holding key positions in the Anti-Defamation Unit of B’nai B’rith and Courage to Care, the B’nai B’rith anti-racism educational program, Alan fought ignorance and indifference in national and international communities, addressing antiracism, antisemitism, and building interfaith dialogue. One of his many communal initiatives, Fair Go Australia, brought together Australians of all communal and faith backgrounds to break down barriers of ignorance and build personal connections during another period of rising hatred. As a tireless defender of the Jewish State, Alan wielded words in opinion columns, letters to the editor, and articles appearing both online and off. Alan also addressed broader community issues through his work on the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies,
Alan gave his time willingly and frequently, speaking about antisemitism, the rise of online fascism, and the importance of countering fiction with fact—using storytelling as a powerful instrument to connect audiences with historical events and their modern-day parallels. In a prescient speech in the early 2000s, he warned of the dangers of the internet as a tool for radicalization and hate speech, believing that impressionable minds were at risk years before the appearance of social media algorithms.
As the literary coordinator of UNSW’s Shalom College’s Festival, Limmud Oz, Alan brought together celebrated and rising authors from Australia and the global Jewish community to educate and entertain audiences. Upon moving to the Blue Mountains, he became a board member of the international writers’ centre in Katoomba, Varuna, and spent many years working towards its support of writers and the furtherance of Australian literature.
Alan’s final years were spent nurturing Australia’s next generation of writers, mentoring them in a master’s level creative writing course, and using his contacts with publishers to smooth their way into publication.
Alan’s warmth, humour, enthusiasm, and generosity endeared him to many, and it is these qualities that will be his lasting legacy to his friends and family. He is survived by his wife of fifty-four years, his children, and grandchildren, Jules, Isabel, and Jude, who will be telling his story for years to come.
Alan Gold: Born Leicester U.K. August 13, 1945 Died: Katoomba NSW June, 2024
