2010 Limmud Conferences

The 2010 Limmud conferences were a great success by all accounts.

The final programme programmes are below:

There is also a Young Limmud programme for kids of all ages.

International presenters

Noam Sachs Zion was born to American parents fighting in the Hagana in Jerusalem in 1948. He grew up in Minneapolis and studied at Columbia University. As a member of the New York Havurah, he was sent by the Israeli consulate to the USSR in 1968 (where the KGB accused him of spying and expelled him after two months). During the Yom Kippur War he made Aliyah and taught for Young Judea, WUJS, Habonim, HUC and Pardes. Since 1978 he has studied and taught at the Shalom Hartman Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies, where he has served as coordinator of the Russian Scholars program, the Teacher In-service Training Program and TICHON educator center for North American Jewish day school faculty. He teaches for Rabbinic enrichment, Christian theologians and Melamdim MA Educators' Program. Noam's published widely on his two particular interests are Biblical narratives (from a family dynamics or art perspective) and Jewish Family Education, especially Jewish holidays. (Noam will be presenting at the JHB and Cape Town conferences only)

Gideon Sylvester was rabbi of Radlett United Synagogue - Britain's fastest growing United Synagogue. Since making Aliya in 2004, he has continued his work for the United Synagogue as Tribe Israel Rabbi. In addition, he has worked as an Adviser to the Minister for Diaspora Affairs at the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel. Gideon currently works at Ohr Torah Stone Institutions. He is a regular writer for the Jewish Chronicle has taught at a number of Yeshivot. Gideon is a senior Jewish Educator at Merchavim - the Institute for Shared Citizenship in Israel.

David Shneer is associate professor of history and director of Jewish Studies at University of Colorado at Boulder. Called a "taboo-breaking scholar" by Tikkun magazine, Shneer's work concentrates on modern Jewish society and culture. His books include Queer Jews, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture, and New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora, that has sparked discussion in publications like the Economist and the Jerusalem Post. His newest book project, the one from which this talk comes, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, & the Holocaust, looks at the lives and works of two dozen World War II military photographers to examine what kinds of photographs they took when they encountered evidence of Nazi genocide on the Eastern Front. He has lived and worked as a scholar and writer in Russia, Germany, and Israel and has written for the New York Times, Huffington Post, Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post as well as magazines dedicated to Jewish life and culture, including Forward, Pakntreger, Jewcy, and Nextbook. David is in South Africa as the South African Holocaust Foundation's Stern visiting scholar for 2010.

Morey Schwartz currently serves as Director of Curriculum and Faculty Development for the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School Institute at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Morey is a graduate of Yeshiva University, with a Master's from the Bernard Revel Graduate School, and ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary. He is the author of the recently published book entitled "Where's My Miracle: Exploring Jewish Traditions for Dealing with Tragedy." Together with his wife and four children, he moved to Israel from the United States in June 2000. He is also a mohel, and lives in Hashmonaim. Morey is brought to Limmud South Africa by the Cape Town Florence Melton adult mini-school, a project of Hebrew University. (Morey will be presenting at the Cape Town and Johannesburg conferences only)

DJ Schneeweiss was born in Sydney, Australia in 1964 and made Aliya in 1987. A Masters Graduate of the Hebrew University, DJ joined Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1994. After serving as Desk Officer for Scandinavia in 1995 DJ was appointed Policy Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving in this position from 1995 to 1998 under Foreign Ministers Ehud Barak and David Levy (for whom DJ also served as interpreter). In 1998 DJ was appointed Press Secretary at the Israeli Embassy in London, where he served until 2002. During this time, DJ was awarded the MFA's Employee of the Year Award (2001) and was also recognized by London's Diplomat magazine as the most effective Embassy spokesman in London. DJ then served for one year as Desk Officer for Britain and Ireland at the MFA in Jerusalem before being appointed as Policy Advisor to Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, a position which he held from 2003.2006. In August 2006 DJ was appointed as Israel's Deputy Ambassador to China. Having returned from Beijing in August 2009 DJ is currently responsible for coordinating MFA strategy and action to counter boycott initiatives and related challenges to Israel. DJ is brought to Limmud SA by the Embassy of Israel, Pretoria.

Inon Schenker is a senior international consultant - Global Health. He worked for the World Health Organization and UNESCO, and has extensive experience in developing countries. Inon is teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (School of Public Health and Community Medicine). He is the Director of Operation Abraham Collaborative, managing a consortium of eight medical organizations supporting roll out of male circumcision under local anesthesia in Africa. He was also the Founding Chair of the Jerusalem AIDS Project. Inon will be presenting at the JHB and Durban conferences only)

Benjamin Pogrund was born in South Africa and was deputy editor of the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg. He now lives in Jerusalem and is founder director of Yakar's Center for Social Concern. He is the author of three books: about Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela and the press under apartheid, and is co-editor of Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue (Benjamin will be presenting at the JHB conference only)

Elad Orian was born in Israel to a typical Ashkenazi family: moving every generation from one continent to another - Poland to Uruguay to Israel - and swinging the ideological pendulum as wide as possible from communists to capitalists and from anarchists to central main stream. Went along a typical route of Army and then university, but then things started to go wrong (or better, depending on point of view) and he ended up spending more time in Palestine than in the university and finally building wind turbines for the cave dwellers of the south Hebron hills.

Sarit Michaeli, B'Tselem's Press Officer, has been an integral part of B'Tselem's staff since October 2004, before which she worked extensively in the fields of journalism, graphic design and translation in her native Israel and overseas in London and New York. In addition, she is very involved in volunteer social action projects, both in Israel and internationally. She holds a Masters Degree in Gender Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a BA in graphic design from Camberwell College of Art, the London Institute.

Ruth Messinger is president of American Jewish World Service (AJWS). She assumed this role in 1998 following a 20-year career in public service in New York City, where she served for 12 years on the New York City Council and 8 as Manhattan borough president. She was the first woman to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for mayor in 1997. Considered a national leader in the movement to end the genocide in Sudan, Ms. Messinger was among leading anti-genocide, peace and human rights advocates called upon to advise President Obama and the new special envoy for Sudan, General J. Scott Gration, in March 2009. In recognition of her leadership, she was recently appointed to the Obama administration's newly formed Task Force on Global Poverty and Development. She is also involved in organizing faith-based efforts to secure human rights around the world.

David Levin-Kruss sees himself as a bridge between the Jewish heritage and those seeking to connect or reconnect to that tradition. He teaches at the Pardes Institute (www.pardes.org.il) in Jerusalem where he also serves as director of special programs. He grew up in Cape Town and was educated at Herzlia. He holds a BA and Teachers' Certification in English Literature and Jewish Thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has rabbinic ordination from the Joseph Strauss Rabbinical Seminary.

Amy Jill Levin is a self-described 'Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Christian divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt'. Amy-Jill Levine, Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University is committed to eliminating anti-Jewish, sexist, and homophobic theologies. Her most recent books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus and the 14-volume Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings.

Gilad Kariv is the Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, has been a leader and advocate on behalf of liberal Judaism in Israel since 1998. He is a board member of the Jewish Agency's Joint Institute for Jewish Studies and Hemdat: the Israel Association for the Promotin of Freedom of Science, Religion and Culture. He represents IMPJ at the Forum for Social Organizations in Israel. Rabbi Kariv is also a committee member of the Knesset's project to establish an Israeli Constitution. (Gilad will be presenting at the Johannesburg conference only)

Jessica Jacoby grew up in West Berlin where she attended Kennedy School, the first German-American school in the city. She received her master's degree from the Free University Berlin. She has worked as a historian in museums, is a freelance film reviewer and is working on her first feature length documentary about her father's Jewish family. Jessica will present the film: Harlan - in the Shadow of Jew Süü;ss, a documentary film by Felix Moeller, that tells the story of one of Nazi Germany's most notorious propaganda filmmakers, Veit Harlan. The film explores how the children and grandchildren of his later marriages struggle with his legacy. Jessica Jacoby is the only Jewish Harlan grandchild. (Jessica will be presenting at the Cape Town and Johannesburg conferences only)

Jay Geller is Associate Professor of Modern Jewish Culture at Vanderbilt University. He has published On Freud's Jewish Body: Mitigating Circumcisions and his forthcoming book Persistent Others: Modernity and the Body of Jewish Identification includes studies of Levin Varnhagen, Heine, Marx, Kafka, and anti-Jewish texts.

Libby Lenkinski Friedlander is the Director of International Relations at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) the country's leading human rights organization. She also consults on media issues and development for several organizations including Just Vision and Videre. Prior to joining ACRI, Ms. Lenkinski managed the international media department at an NGO Consultancy in Israel, where she also served as the Director of International Outreach for Yesh Din. She holds a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and English literature from McGill University and a master's degree in Education from Bank Street College.

Richard Freund is the University of Hartford's director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies and is also an ordained Rabbi. He directs numerous archaeological projects in Israel including sites in Qumran, Cave of Letters, Nazareth, Yavne, Bethsaida and Har Karkom, and in Spain Burgos and Cadiz, and in Poland Sobibor and Luta. He is the author of eight books, including the recent Digging Through the Bible: People, Places and Controversies, and has appeared in documentaries on the Discovery and History Channel.

Jonathan Fine lectures at the Lauder School of Government at the IDC in Herzlyia, Israel, where he is also the academic adviser of the international program in government, diplomacy, and strategy, and a fellow researcher at the ICT (the International Institute for Counter Terrorism) He is an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, terrorism, counterterrorism, political violence and comparative religion, with special emphasis on the transition from secular to religious agenda political violence. His forthcoming second book is titled: "The Concept of Holy War in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: a Comparative Analysis - Past and Present" Dr. Fine is also an ordained Conservative Rabbi.

Gregg Drinkwater is the founding executive director of Jewish Mosaic: The National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, a U.S.-based organization dedicated to helping Jewish institutions become more welcoming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews and their families. With Rabbi Joshua Lesser and Dr. David Shneer, he is the co-editor of the book "Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible" (NYU Press, Oct. 2009), inspired by the online Torah commentary project launched by Jewish Mosaic in 2006. He has served as a volunteer, board member or advisor to a wide range of Jewish and LGBT organizations and is currently the president of Limmud Colorado. Drinkwater has worked in nonprofit communications, at a daily newspaper in Russia, and as the news editor for Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, the world's most popular LGBT Web sites. Drinkwater earned his B.S. and M.A. degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also worked for several years toward a Ph.D. in history.