Limmud

Friday 22nd December 2006-Day 1
Some of my friends could not understand why I would want to possibly go spend my end-of-year break in Nottingham on a university campus studying and attending sessions like The Fate of the Yekkes (German Jews) who fled to Palestine in the 1930’s or attending more sessions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as if I had not enough of that over the last few years.

As Dan Patterson, creator of Whose Line Is it Anyway said in the Jewish Chronicle this week “It was like being back at Habonim without the hair, it is the best thing for Jews beyond Israel”.

Last Friday morning, we left for Limmud on a bus, and I was put in charge of the bus with an eccentrically upbeat lady Linda Grant, Linda could best be described as a New Yorker who loves Carlebach, Kaballah and catching waves on her surf board. I was one of the only people on my bus who was not presenting something at Limmud.

After stopping at a garage complex and witnessed pricing for food and drinks which could only be described as maniacally extortionate and exorbitant, we pulled into a misty, foggy cold Nottingham. A delightful Scottish man, Mr. David McCallum, registered me, although having lived in London for over 30 years, he had an accent which made Sean Connery’s accent sound as genuine as the DVD’s sold at the traffic lights in Johannesburg…

I went as a volunteer, which meant I got a hefty discount, I had to work 4 and a half hours a day, this prevented me from attending certain sessions, however I think my brain would have been worse off had I attended every thing on off. I helped set up for Shabbat, and after lighting Shabbat candles at the incredibly early time of 15:00 in the afternoon,

I did not really know anyone who was going to be there over Shabbat, and even the candle lighting felt a bit strange.

Shul services at Limmud are not organized by the Limmud organizers, a time slot gets allotted for them and the Orthodox, Reform, Liberal, Masorti communities need to organize their own venues and do their own marketing. I went to the Masorti shul, and the different accents of people was amazing, and I soon worked out that were people from Holland on my left, Swiss folk on my right, Israelis, Americans and Swedes behind me, and Germans and Londoners in front of me.

There were only about 350 people at Shabbat, a lot of them were foreigners, hence the Friday night service feeling like a global event, most Brits came just for the conference.

The first session I attended was by Einat Wilf, an aspiring politician who is a member of the Labor Party. Einat spoke about Woman in Israeli Politics and the many challenges they had.

The sessions over Shabbat were much more intimate, and one could really engage with the presenters. The sessions went on from an hour to ninety minutes.
We all had Shabbat dinner in one hall; this was interesting to see the different types of Jews who all obviously were accustomed to certain customs from the type of Judaism they belonged to. It was amazing to see that there was no tension, that an Orthodox Jew did not walk out when a Reform woman might have said a prayer etc. I sat next to Co-Chair of Limmud SA, Vivienne Anstey and I asked her whether this would ever be possible in South Africa…


I broke bread with Vivienne, Phillip Brodie, former Cape Tonian who is very involved in Limmud and Ruthie Warshenbrot, a North Carolina native, John Edwards fan and involved in Limmud New York.

After dinner, I went to a talk by the former Israeli Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Gershon Gan, someone I had last heard speak at a Habonim Friday night meeting in 2000. We both remembered each other. His lecture was called “Would you want to be adopted by Madonna”. It looked at Israel’s technical assistance to Africa, whilst many confused folk walked out when they realised the session was not on adoption per se, those who stayed found it interesting. I did not find it to be a typical hasbara speech, but something more personal and genuine.

I only got two hours sleep the night before so I had an early night.