Estelle Blackburn is a Walkey Award-winning investigative journalist who took on the justice system and, through her research, courage and self-sacrifice, overturned two wrongful convictions against all odds, demonstrating the power of an individual to alter history and improve society at a fundamental level.

Estelle's talk will highlight one aspect of this wider story, namely her research on Pnina Berkman and its life-changing outcomes for her family.

Kaddish for Mother, 50 years on:
A true tikkun olam story

Tel Aviv resident Mark Berkman was in his 50s before he managed to get to Perth to say Kaddish for his mother, Pnina, who died when he was eight. All Mark knew of her was his late father telling him was she was ‘killed by a madman’.

Mark said Kaddish for his mother at last, reciting the prayer solemnly at her grave. To his bewilderment, it was brand new, starkly different from all the others in this part of the cemetery’s Jewish Orthodox sector.

Come to Estelle Blackburn’s talk to hear Mark’s story and find out who he calls the ‘angels who helped him through his personal holocaust’ and why.