Limmud Hamptons set for Sunday 15 August

A packed one-day of Jewish learning, identity, socializing and entertainment for young Russian-speaking adults will take place at The Hampton Synagogue, 154 Sunset Avenue, Westhampton Beach, Long Island, New York, this coming Sunday, 15 August, from 11.00 am to 11.00 pm..

More than 50 presentations, workshops, seminars, panels and lectures will take place on subjects as diverse as tales of passion in the Talmud; How S.Y.Agnon won the Nobel prize for literature; the life and legacy of Menachem Begin; human sexuality in the Bible; Kosher “take-out;” Jewish spies in the Second World War; disputation in Jewish tradition; alternative medicine and “Jewish” cosmetics; Islamic fundamentalism; the Russian-American mass media and much more.

Panels of leading experts from the United States and Israel will discuss topics such as: Jewish philanthropy; immigrants – who needs them? The delegitimization of Israel; Russian- Jewish identity; Jews and Muslims in American – can they trust each other? The problem of Iran; Russian immigrant media in the US today, Israeli – American relations and etc. The presentations will take place in Russian or in English with Russian translation and will end up with a barbeque, artistic performances, music and dancing.

This is the second Limmud to be held in New York and follows on the huge success of the first last year. Limmud, founded in Britain 30 years ago, has travelled across the world, and in 2006, Limmud FSU (Former Soviet Union) was founded to provide a unique non-formal learning experience for young Russian-speaking Jews to get together for inspiring events on a wide variety of topics – something for everyone. This year’s Limmud is being held under the central theme of the 26 Jewish Nobel prizewinners who originated in the Russian Empire, the USSR and in Israel. In addition to New York and Israel, Limmud FSU gatherings have been held in Jerusalem, Moscow, Odessa, Yalta, Birobidjan, Minsk, Lvov and more are planned for this and the coming years.

Among starred speakers are the Jewish NASA astronaut, Dr.Garrett Reisman, Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz, Israel’s Minister of Science and Technology, Malcolm Hoenlein, Congressman Peter King, Daniel Mariaschin, Rabbi Mark Schneier, Dr Nona Kuchina, Dr Zvia Walden-Peres, Matthew Bronfman, Jerry Levin, Yuri Foreman, Dr. John Ruskay, Israeli top musicians Marina Maximilian Blumin and Leonid Ptashka and dozens of others.

During the day some of the key sessions and panels will be broadcast live on the Internet on the following three main channels (free feeds are available):

For further details and a timetable please call the project manager, Karina Polonskaya, at 19172935023 or Roman Kogan – Limmud FSU COO 12027252583

Natan Roee

The Hamptons on New York’s Long Island have been considered for decades a retreat for the wealthy Jews of Greater New York. But the Hamptons were basically not much more than a summer resort. To this spot came the composer Irving Berlin when he wanted to recharge his batteries and Isaac Batshevis Singer (the Nobel prizewinner) and his brother Jacob after they arrived from their Polish stetl of Bilgoray.

But many more Jews arrived and settled permanently after the establishment of the Westhampton Synagogue under the leadership of Rabbi Mark Schneier, who turned the building into a center for cultural events and which became noted for the rare intellectual ambience surrounding the events and the synagogue itself. The cultural programs consist of lectures and presentations, artistic performances, including the cantor Natanel Hershtik, and a highly professional choir which accompanies the services. Today, West Hampton which is surrounded by a Shabbat eruv, is a lively center on weekdays, the weekends and festivals. “Here you have a real sense of being Jewish in the best possible connotation of the word” says Stewart Cahn who arrived here this Friday from New York before the onset of the Sabbath. Here, in this very special atmosphere sit dignified New Yorkers in their Shabbat finery, alongside people in shorts and T shirts wrapped in designer tallitot (prayer shawls).

It was this atmosphere and infrastructure that led to the first Limmud FSU event in the United States taking place in Westhampton in 2009. This inaugural event was held under the general theme of 150 years since the birth of the Jewish-Russian playwright writer, Shalom Aleichem. The event was attended by many of prominent Jews of the area including the Yiddish-speaking Congressman Jerry Nadler of Manhattan, Bel Kaufman, the 98 year-old daughter of Shalom Aleichem, Israeli Minister of Immigration Absorption, Sopha Landver, Israel’s Consul-General in New York, Asaf Sharif, and Knesset members Zev Elkin and Fanya Kirshenbaum, both of them immigrants from the Former Soviet Union.

The success of the event spurred a great appetite for more. On Sunday 15 August, 2010, the second Limmud FSU Hamptons, took place, this time under the general theme of Nobel prizewinners originating in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Israel, again sponsored jointly with the Westhampton Synagogue. More than 500 participants, most of them immigrants from the Former Soviet Union come from all corners of the USA to participate in the one-day festival of Jewish learning, identity and culture. This year alone, over 3000 Russian-speaking young adults have attended Limmud FSU events in Ukraine, Russia and Jerusalem, and now it was the turn of the USA.

Chaim Chesler, the founder of Limmud FSU and its co-chair, says that the “miracle of Hamptons stems from several basic elements. In the first place, the reputation Limmud has acquired in the heart of the American Jewish consensus for the quality of its content and presentations, and secondly, the enormous enthusiasm of the new immigrant community for Jewish learning, coupled with the desire of the long-established Jewish community to encourage the new immigrants to integrate fully into American Jewish life. Once it was said that a glass wall separates the new immigrants from the American Jewish community and Israel. Limmud has shattered the glass because of its world-class speakers, its amazing volunteers and the cooperation between Limmud FSU and the Hampton Synagogue.”

Dr. Tzvia Walden, daughter of the President of Israel, Shimon Peres and a regular Limmud participant, arrived in Westhampton in order to deliver an after-dinner talk in the synagogue on the eve of the opening of Limmud. She chose as her theme her family roots, especially her father’s parents. As a child, she recalled that she would arrive at their home and would notice a Hebrew book which was always open at the same page on the table. She asked her grandmother why the book was always open at the same page. The answer came, “ask your grandfather.” And the grandfather replied, “ask your grandmother.” In the end, the secret was revealed. Under their bed the elderly couple hid piles of books in Russian and newspapers and magazines in Yiddish. They explained, “We can’t live without books in Russian and Yiddish newspapers, but the Hebrew book is there so that you, the grandchildren, will learn Hebrew.”

Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, Minister of Science and Technology in the government of Israel arrived just before the onset of Shabbat, straight from negotiations with NASA over American-Israel cooperation in the field of space technology. In his after-dinner talk, drawn from the week’s sidra, he told the story of a seventeen-year old boy who was standing by the gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp in April, 1945, when it was liberated by the US army. Among the soldiers was a US military chaplain who addressed the Jewish survivors. The boy approached the rabbi and had only one request – that he could borrow a set of tefillin (phlacteries) as his had been confiscated by the Nazis. Tears in his eyes, the Rabbi handed over his own set of tefillin to the boy, telling him to keep them.

Hershkowitz went on to say that that boy was his father, who was liberated from Buchenwald 65 years ago. The father married another Holocaust survivor and years later, the young Daniel used the same tefillin at his bar mitzvah. The circle was closed when the boy, now a minister in the government of Israel, visited Auschwitz as a participant in the annual “March of the Living.” And once again the Buchenwald tefillin came into use.

Rabbi Schneier notes that the decision by his synagogue to cooperate with Limmud FSU stems from his fundamental understanding that it is the role of the established Jewish community to take the immigrants to their hearts, especially as today every fourth Jew in New York is originally from the FSU.

On the grounds of the Synagogue, three enormous marquees have been erected and within them dozens of lecture centers. The principal guest at the opening ceremony is the Jewish NASA astronaut, Dr Garret Reisman and then the Limmud event will truly get underway for the hundreds of participants who have an almost inexplicable thirst for Jewish knowledge.

Chesler says “the Russian Jewish community in America has vast resources of energy. A phenomenon that it shares with similar communities in Israel, Germany, Canada, Australia – and of course in the countries of the Former Soviet Union themselves – energies which are expressed in the need to bolster the sense of Jewish identity and the desire for more knowledge. It is this community that needs to make its own decisions over such crucial issues as national identity, who is a Jew, the place of women in Judaism, pluralism and other central issues of Jewish existence today. Limmud can play an essential in this search and in these decisions.”

18 Aug 2010

Natan Roee

The Hamptons on New York’s Long Island have been considered for decades a retreat for the wealthy Jews of Greater New York. But the Hamptons were basically not much more than a summer resort. To this spot came the composer Irving Berlin when he wanted to recharge his batteries and Isaac Batshevis Singer (the Nobel prizewinner) and his brother Jacob after they arrived from their Polish stetl of Bilgoray.

But many more Jews arrived and settled permanently after the establishment of the Westhampton Synagogue under the leadership of Rabbi Mark Schneier, who turned the building into a center for cultural events and which became noted for the rare intellectual ambience surrounding the events and the synagogue itself. The cultural programs consist of lectures and presentations, artistic performances, including the cantor Natanel Hershtik, and a highly professional choir which accompanies the services. Today, West Hampton which is surrounded by a Shabbat eruv, is a lively center on weekdays, the weekends and festivals. “Here you have a real sense of being Jewish in the best possible connotation of the word” says Stewart Cahn who arrived here this Friday from New York before the onset of the Sabbath. Here, in this very special atmosphere sit dignified New Yorkers in their Shabbat finery, alongside people in shorts and T shirts wrapped in designer tallitot (prayer shawls).

It was this atmosphere and infrastructure that led to the first Limmud FSU event in the United States taking place in Westhampton in 2010. This inaugural event was held under the general theme of 100 years since the birth of the Jewish-Russian playwright writer, Shalom Aleichem. The event was attended by many of prominent Jews of the area including the Yiddish-speaking Congressman Jerry Nadler of Manhattan, Bel Kaufman, the 98 year-old daughter of Shalom Aleichem, Israeli Minister of Immigration Absorption, Sopha Landver, Israel’s Consul-General in New York, Asaf Sharif, and Knesset members Zev Elkin and Fanya Kirshenbaum, both of them immigrants from the Former Soviet Union.

The success of the event spurred a great appetite for more. On Sunday 15 August, 2010, the second Limmud FSU Hamptons, took place, this time under the general theme of Nobel prizewinners originating in the countries of the former Soviet Union and Israel, again sponsored jointly with the Westhampton Synagogue. More than 500 participants, most of them immigrants from the Former Soviet Union come from all corners of the USA to participate in the one-day festival of Jewish learning, identity and culture. This year alone, over 3000 Russian-speaking young adults have attended Limmud FSU events in Ukraine, Russia and Jerusalem, and now it was the turn of the USA.

Chaim Chesler, the founder of Limmud FSU and its co-chair, says that the “miracle of Hamptons stems from several basic elements. In the first place, the reputation Limmud has acquired in the heart of the American Jewish consensus for the quality of its content and presentations, and secondly, the enormous enthusiasm of the new immigrant community for Jewish learning, coupled with the desire of the long-established Jewish community to encourage the new immigrants to integrate fully into American Jewish life. Once it was said that a glass wall separates the new immigrants from the American Jewish community and Israel. Limmud has shattered the glass because of its world-class speakers, its amazing volunteers and the cooperation between Limmud FSU and the Hampton Synagogue.”

Dr. Tzvia Walden, daughter of the President of Israel, Shimon Peres and a regular Limmud participant, arrived in Westhampton in order to deliver an after-dinner talk in the synagogue on the eve of the opening of Limmud. She chose as her theme her family roots, especially her father’s parents. As a child, she recalled that she would arrive at their home and would notice a Hebrew book which was always open at the same page on the table. She asked her grandmother why the book was always open at the same page. The answer came, “ask your grandfather.” And the grandfather replied, “ask your grandmother.” In the end, the secret was revealed. Under their bed the elderly couple hid piles of books in Russian and newspapers and magazines in Yiddish. They explained, “We can’t live without books in Russian and Yiddish newspapers, but the Hebrew book is there so that you, the grandchildren, will learn Hebrew.”

Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, Minister of Science and Technology in the government of Israel arrived just before the onset of Shabbat, straight from negotiations with NASA over American-Israel cooperation in the field of space technology. In his after-dinner talk, drawn from the week’s sidra, he told the story of a seventeen-year old boy who was standing by the gates of the Buchenwald concentration camp in April, 1945, when it was liberated by the US army. Among the soldiers was a US military chaplain who addressed the Jewish survivors. The boy approached the rabbi and had only one request – that he could borrow a set of tefillin (phlacteries) as his had been confiscated by the Nazis. Tears in his eyes, the Rabbi handed over his own set of tefillin to the boy, telling him to keep them.

Hershkowitz went on to say that that boy was his father, who was liberated from Buchenwald 65 years ago. The father married another Holocaust survivor and years later, the young Daniel used the same tefillin at his bar mitzvah. The circle was closed when the boy, now a minister in the government of Israel, visited Auschwitz as a participant in the annual “March of the Living.” And once again the Buchenwald tefillin came into use.

Rabbi Schneier notes that the decision by his synagogue to cooperate with Limmud FSU stems from his fundamental understanding that it is the role of the established Jewish community to take the immigrants to their hearts, especially as today every fourth Jew in New York is originally from the FSU.

On the grounds of the Synagogue, three enormous marquees have been erected and within them dozens of lecture centers. The principal guest at the opening ceremony is the Jewish NASA astronaut, Dr Garret Reisman and then the Limmud event will truly get underway for the hundreds of participants who have an almost inexplicable thirst for Jewish knowledge.

Chesler says “the Russian Jewish community in America has vast resources of energy. A phenomenon that it shares with similar communities in Israel, Germany, Canada, Australia – and of course in the countries of the Former Soviet Union themselves – energies which are expressed in the need to bolster the sense of Jewish identity and the desire for more knowledge. It is this community that needs to make its own decisions over such crucial issues as national identity, who is a Jew, the place of women in Judaism, pluralism and other central issues of Jewish existence today. Limmud can play an essential in this search and in these decisions.”

Limmud FSU blog 23 July 2010

Glitz and Glitter at Limmud

Asher Weill

Yesterday evening on the expanse of lawn of Kiryat Moriah, the Jewish Agency’s educational campus in Jerusalem, more than 1000 participants in Limmud FSU Nobel 2010 celebrated in a glitzy and glittering evening, twenty years since the mass immigration of the Jews of the Former Soviet Union. The MCs for the evening were Igal Ravid of Israel Television’s Channel One and Yelena Lagutina, of the Russian language channel Nine. Four singers, all of whom immigrated to Israel from the Former Soviet Union, performed, beginning with the singer and composer Arkady Duchin who immigrated to Israel from Belarus at the age of 15 in 1978. He was followed by two younger generation performers, Vladi Blaiberg and the stunning Sasha Grishkov, both of whom were discovered on the popular Israeli reality show, Kochav Nolad (“A Star is Born” – the Israeli edition of “American Idol”). The audience happily sung along with them, especially when they broke into a rousing medley of traditional Russian sings.

The ceremonial part of the evening was devoted to presenting five Limmud FSU awards to Russian-speaking immigrants for excellence in various fields. The first was arguably one of the greatest athletes that Israel has ever produced, the pole vaulter, Alex Averbuch, who twice won a gold medal at the European Athletics Championships and who immigrated to Israel from Irkutsk in 1999. His crystal plaque for excellence in sport was presented by Limor Livnat, Minister of Culture and Sport, who told the audience that Averbuch is the newly appointed director of a government sponsored body to promote excellence in sport and train a new generation of athletes. Another plaque went to Cameri actress Yelena Yaralova, for excellence in theater. The third – for the plastic arts - went to the conceptual artist and painter Tatyana Belokonenko, and the fourth to Ira Ginzburg, for creativity in business, who begin work with one computer in her bedroom ten years ago, and now heads one of Jerusalem’s largest design and graphic studios. The fifth went to the program, Nativ, run jointly by the Jewish Agency and the Israel Defense Forces for its intensive Jewish educational program that works to strengthen new immigrant soldiers' connections to the state of Israel and to their Jewish cultural heritage.

And a propos Nativ, the undoubted stars of the evening were not on the stage at all, but in the packed audience. More than 300 soldiers serving in every branch of the IDF - all of them new immigrants, and mostly from the former Soviet Union, joined in with wild enthusiasm in the songs, dancing in the aisles and providing a vibrant image in real time of the strength and beauty of 20 years of Russian-speaking immigration.

Limmud FSU blog 23 July 2010

Limmud discovers Taglit

Asher Weill

Taglit in Hebrew means a find or discovery. More to the point, taglit (also known as “Birthright”) is a program that brings young Jews who have never been to Israel before to the country for ten-day heritage and orientation visits. As of now, more than 200,000 young Jewish adults from over 50 countries have visited Israel on taglit trips.

When the organizers of this year’s Limmud FSU realized that among a recent taglit contingent there was a group of young musicians from the former Soviet Union, arrangements were made for them to stay over for a few more days in order to appear at the Limmud festival. And what an unexpected treat it was for the 1000 Limmud participants. Playing at the opening reception at Kiriat Moriah, and then by popular demand in a concert of classical music and jazz of their own at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, the 12 young musicians blew the crowd away by their musicianship, by their standard of playing, their professionalism and their sheer exuberance and charm. I will happily go out on a limb and prophesy that these 18-26 year-old instrumentalists, and one singer, are going to make a name for themselves in the very near future. I happily record their names for posterity – and just remember when you come across them on an international stage, they played at Limmud in 2010 and you first read about them here! They are

- all in all, a taglit indeed!

Limmud FSU blog 22 July 2010

Limmud Looks at Prime Ministers behind the Scenes

An unusual encounter took place this morning at the Limmud FSU Festival. Three key individuals who spent many years as advisors in one capacity or another to three prime ministers - Efrat Duvdevany, Director of the office of President Shimon Peres, and before that an aide to Yitzhak Rabin, Herzl Makov. adviser to both Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, and Eitan Haber, media consultant to Yitzhak Rabin, got together to tell some of the stories of work with their respective bosses, under the baton of Yaron Deckel, the noted political commentator on Israel radio and television..

Evidently there were serious differences in the approach of each prime minister to the issue of speeches and speech writing. Shamir would pay only a cursory glance, Rabin practiced each speech time and time again, while Peres, the perfectionist, ponders over word after experts and professors in the relevant topic have been consulted. Begin, on the other hand, preferred to speak extemporaneously without the help of a speech writer.

Israelis remember Rabin’s speech before the United States Congress in July, 1994, when at a certain point he said, “I, military ID number 34703, retired general in the Israel Defense Forces in the past, consider myself to be a soldier of peace today.” However, the famous phrase almost did not see the light of day! Eitan Haber relates that before the event, as Rabin read over the text, he burst one of his famous short fuses and said he was not going to read “such cheap kitsch.” Haber gently pointed out that the speech had already been printed and placed on the seats of all the members of Congress – and of course, distributed to journalists. Not clear as to what was actually going to happen, Haber was on tenterhooks as the passage in the speech neared, especially as he saw that the members of Congress were all putting the paper with the address down. Do they know something he doesn’t? Haber swears that Rabin glared at him from the podium – but duly read out the offending sentence. Then Haber realized why the Congress members had put the paper down – to make it easier to give a standing ovation.

Limmud on Philanthropy

Asher Weill

This year’s Limmud has been remarkable for the high quality of its round table and panel discussions. One such panel was on the issue of philanthropy and seven leading philanthropists active in Jewish causes (including Limmud FSU), Matthew Bronfman, owner of IKEA and the Discount Bank in Israel, two well-known Jewish philanthropists from New York, Diane Wohl and Sandra Cahn, Miriam Barkai, director of the Louis Pincus Fund, Dr Nona Kochina and her husband Dr Moshe Shneerson, who founded Dr Nona International, and Aaron Frenkel, president of Lloyds Investment group and an internationally known business man, shared their views.

While all maintained that the recent economic crisis (to say nothing of the Bernard Madoff case) did not have a serious effect on their philanthropic efforts, it is clear that other individuals and foundations suffered badly (a few have actually ceased to exist) and this has had an impact on giving to charitable causes. Nevertheless, what became clear from each speaker is that for all of them, the prime motivating factor behind their decision to support one charity and not necessarily another, is the degree to which they feel a personal commitment to the aims of the charity in question. Matthew Bronfman, quoting his father Edgar, said “There is no such thing as a bad charity: it is all a question of priorities,” thus evidently expressing the feelings of all of them. It was also important to each of them that they could keep a close personal involvement, thus deepening their commitment.

As far as Limmud activities in the Former Soviet Union itself is concerned, Sandra Cahn pointed out that even though the Limmud principle that participants pay for their participation was a hard concept to explain in Russia, she could note with satisfaction that several Limmud “graduates” in Russia and Ukraine especially, have gone over to running some of the major Jewish organizations in their countries. In the eyes of Aaron Frenkel, investing in Limmud FSU was tantamount to investing in yet another start-up company, and the same business principles apply. However, whatever the reason, Limmud FSU appealed to a basic (perhaps atavistic?) instinct in all of them and as Diane Wohl said, “for me to support Limmud was a no-brainer.”



Tomorrow, Limmud moves to the Menachem Begin Heritage Center