Limmud

Organisation

Limmud is a company and a charity. It is run by a board of directors and trustees, all of whom are volunteers. Initially, there was no difference between Limmud the organisation and Limmud Conference, the annual event, so the chairs of the Conference team were the chairs of the organisation. In 1990, a chair for the organisation who was separate from the Conference chairs was appointed for the first time. In 2006, Limmud International was created, as a separate unit within Limmud to manage relationships with other Limmud groups around the world.

Chairs of Limmud Conference

1980 – 1981 Alistair Falk, Michael May, Jonathan Benjamin, Clive Lawton

1982 – 1984 Steve Miller

1985 Tina Elliott

1986 Jonathan Benjamin

1987 Alan Wilkinson

1988 Madeline Ismach

1989 Alistair Falk

1990 – 1994 Andrew Gilbert

1995 Natan Tiefenbrun

1996 Yvonne Krasner, Marc Soloway, Judy Trotter

1997 Micah Gold, Jonny Persey, Marc Soloway

1998 Micah Gold

1999 Jacqueline Nicholls, Claire Straus

2000 Andrew Levy, Abe Sterne

2001 Claire Mandel, Carolyn Bogush

2002 Juliet Simmons

2003 Fleurise Luder, Eliot Kaye

2004 Batya Elliott, Paul Turner

2005 David Century, Shoshana Bloom

2006 Jason Caplin, Natalie Grazin

2007 Kevin Sefton

2008 Libby Burkeman and Charles Darwish

2009 Rebecca Lester and David Israel

2010 Danielle Nagler and Steven Fisher

2011 Shoshana Bloom and Jonathan Walters

2012 David Renton

2013 Oliver Marcus and Richard Verber

2014 Shana Boltin and Jonathan Robinson

2015 Joanna Ish-Horowicz, Michael Gladstone and Claire Samuel

2016 Ben Crowne and Steve Weller

Chairs of Limmud

1990 – 1997 Andrew Gilbert

1998 – 2001 Judy Trotter

1998 – 2000 Natan Tiefenbrun

2001 – 2003 Claire Straus

2003 – 2005 Claire Mandel

2006 – 2009 Elliott Goldstein

2010 – 2012 Carolyn Bogush

2013 – 2015 Kevin Sefton

2016 – David Hoffman

Chairs of Limmud International

2006 – 2009 Andrew Gilbert

2010 – 2012 Uri Berkowitz, Helena Miller

2013 – 2014 David Hoffman

2015 – David Bilchitz

Limmud's first professional appointment in 1998 was of Clive Lawton as part-time Executive Director; he gradually became backed by a full-time administrator. In 2006 Limmud recruited its first full-time Executive Director, Raymond Simonson, former Director of UJIA Makor: The Centre for Informal Jewish Education. When Simonson became Chief Executive of London's Jewish Community Centre, now JW3, in 2012, he was succeeded by Shelley Marsh. She stepped down from the role in 2015. Mike Schindler was the Limmud Director of Operations and the senior professional in the organisation between March and August 2015, and then Dani Serlin was Acting Executive Director until February 2016. In February 2016, Limmud appointed the current Chief Executive, Eli Ovits, as senior professional.

Limmud Conference

Limmud Conference, which takes place every year in the last week of December, is the organisation's flagship event. The event, which was inspired by the CAJE conference in the United States [1], attracts more than 2,000 participants annually and in 2015 the numbers rose to 2,750. A typical day at Limmud Conference includes around 200 sessions spanning religious, cultural and political aspects of Jewish life. An example of the conference can be seen online at Limmud Conference Programme by Session and Presenter 2009. After the first conferences at Carmel College (Oxfordshire), Limmud Conference has been held at Portsmouth Polytechnic (1984), Oxford Brookes University (1986–1994), Worcester (1995–96), Manchester (1997), Nottingham University (1998–2006) and Warwick University (2007–14). Since 2015 the conference has been held at the hotels surrounding Pendigo Lake, near Birmingham.

Limmud in the Woods

Limmud in the Woods (formerly known as Limmud Fest) is held in the last week of August. It has been running since 2005. Limmud's summer national event, it is held under canvas, has a less intense programme centred on Shabbat and is more cultural and outdoorsy than its winter sibling. It is attended by around 200–250 young adults and young families.

Day and weekend Limmud events

The first Day Limmud was in Sheffield in the early 1980s, followed by Leeds in the mid-1990s. Day and weekend Limmuds are now held at a number of venues in the UK, including Birmingham, Cambridge, Harrow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, and the Thames Valley.

In the past, Limmuds have also been held in Bournemouth, Brighton, Glasgow, Hackney, Newcastle, South London and South East London.

Other Limmud events in UK

Other events run by Limmud in the UK either on their own or in partnership with others have included music events and the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, organised in partnership with the London Jewish Cultural Centre.

Limmuds around the world

The Limmud model has now spread to many other countries. Eighty communities in 40 countries on six continents have hosted Limmud events including, in 2013 for the first time, Hong Kong, Peru, India and Montenegro.

Relationships with Orthodoxy in Britain

The former London United Synagogue Beth Din's Head Dayan (rabbinic judge), Chanoch Ehrentreu, advised Orthodox rabbis not to attend Limmud Conference. However, in the UK many United Synagogue pulpit rabbis have attended Limmud. In December 2010 Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of Mill Hill United Synagogue, who had been seen as a notable absentee and critic of Limmud, attended, took part in and taught at Limmud's 30th annual Conference. Following this he wrote on the synagogue's website: "upon return all I could ask myself was, 'where was I until now?'"

Jonathan Sacks did not attend Limmud whilst being Chief Rabbi but attended when he was the head of Jews College. Sacks, when looking back on his rabbinate, considers Limmud to be one of the great successes of his time.

Controversy erupted again in 2013 when newly elected Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis announced his decision to attend. Subsequently, a public notice signed by seven leading Orthodox rabbis including Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu and Rabbi Avrohom Gurwicz and published in the Jewish Tribune, attacked pluralism and urged "God-fearing Jews" not to participate in Limmud. This sparked condemnation by non-Charedi communal leaders, with Jewish Leadership Council chairman Mick Davis, Board of Deputies president Vivian Wineman and United Synagogue president Stephen Pack writing to The Jewish Chronicle saying that the statement showed "a shocking failure of leadership". The Jewish Chronicle itself described the statement as "crass, ill-judged and ultimately self-defeating". Mirvis's attendance at the 2013 Limmud Conference was well received by fellow participants. At least nine other United Synagogue rabbis also attended the event.