Limmud Day 4-Monday

Conference got into full swing on the Monday, many top speakers were lined up for the Monday, and decisions were impossible.

At 09:00 I had to decide between attending another session by Alon Tal, Noami Chazan or Roi Yellin, a Meretz strategist. At the last moment I decided to go to Yellin. Yellin is a brash, Tel Aviv as they come political strategist. He looked at what happened to the “ Israeli Left “. Candidly told, Yellin rubbed a few people up the wrong way, but I loved this session.

You then had intensive sessions where you could go and hear one speaker over 4 different slots over the next 4 days. I went to go see an old friend Mikhael Manekin. Mikhael, an observant Orthodox Jew has consistent and strong left wing political views. He represented an organization called Breaking the Silence and looked at the violations and transgressions caused by Israeli soldiers in the territories. Breaking the Silence is made up of reservists who give testimonies of their experiences once they leave the army. Certain people were dumbstruck at what they saw and heard and one even saw Mikhael as an agent of the anti-Zionist left, but as much as it was hard for people to comprehend it gave them a lot of new insight and perspectives into the complications of the continued occupation and the dilemmas facing the soldiers.

I had 8 lectures I wanted to attend in the post-lunch slot, yes, 8, it was a torrid decision to make. Eventually, I went to Rabbi Arik Ascherman’s session entitled” The Dialogue of the Olive Groves” Ascherman is the director of Rabbi’s For Human Rights, an organization which involves itself in stopping house demolitions, the destruction of Palestinian olive groves, and helping the impoverished in Israel. I had heard and read a lot about him Ascherman and it was great to finally see him in the flesh.

I then went to a presentation by Naomi Tsur from SPNI (Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel). She spoke about the Safdie Plan, a development I had been monitoring for some time, an idea to turn much of the green space of Jerusalem into an unsustainable housing development which would be an ecological and environmental disaster of the highest order. She spoke about the coalition fighting this project Sustainable Jerusalem and some of the many advancements they have made to stop this nonsensical development plan.

After dinner I went to a short film called Dharamsala Sheli, made by up and coming Israeli film maker-Elad Wexler. The film looked at this Israeli who went to India after the army and how he dealt with these experiences upon his return to Israel. A good discussion followed and it was great to break the routine of lecture after lecture with some new film.

Vivienne Anstey organized an introductory Limmud SA meeting, there was a small delegation of 4 South Africans, but many other South Africans who live abroad and wanted to get involved. It was very impressive how many former South Africans presented at Limmud and a handful were former members of Habonim.

Later that night, Dan Patterson brought out the guitar for an evening of typical Habonim campfire songs part Hebrew, part rock classics, I could see how this guy had created award winning TV programmes and just imagined what a legendary madrich he must have been.


When glancing through my Conference handbook two names always stood out Maurice Stone and Srdjan Cillic. Both of them were down for presenting most sessions at conference. All they spoke about or did was involving or related to Israeli dancing. Maurice met Srdjan in Belgrade when teaching Israeli Dancing there, and these unlikely dancers have been a hit ever since then.

Srdjan could be a bouncer or a wrestler, he must be about 6”4, a hulking figure with a boyish smile dancing with a hirsute Mauurice Stone, it was brilliant to see such a collaboration and even more amazing to see Limmudniks dancing till well after 01:00 in the morning. I headed to the pub and again got suitably sloshed and then made my way back to my bed….\

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1) Mikhael Manekin during his presentation
2) Dan Patterson on the guitar getting the crowd going
3) Srdjan Cillic doing Israeli dancing