Here is the complete schedule of presenters and times for this year's Limmud at the Asper Campus.
Please note that sessions and schedules are subject to change, but here is the impressive line up so far.
Saturday, March 2
7:00 PMDoors Open
7:45 PMHavdallah with Kinzey Posen
8:00 PM
The Black Jew Dialogues
Larry Jay Tish and Ron Jones
A Hilarious two-actor play on the history and absurdity of prejudice and racism. This fast-paced show combines sketches, improvisation, puppets, audience participation, a game show, and multi-media. The play is constantly on tour in the U.S.A., Canada, and the U.K.. See the playprofiled on CNN - www.theblackjewdialogues.com
Israel – The Financial Insight You Have Been Waiting For
Baruch (Brent) Labinsky
Many people just don’t realize the financial relevance that the State of Israel has to their lives. Obviously those contemplating, or in the throes of making Aliyah, will benefit from the tips and information that the session provides. However, the session is also geared towards those who have children and/or grandchildren living in Israel, and whom they would like to help or advise financially. Whether it is real estate decisions or international taxation and inheritance laws issues – come and hear how to deal with those issues affecting anyone connected with Israel and/or people living there. Learn about excellent investment opportunities in financial sound Israel that can improve your diversification and also support the state of Israel. The seminar will cover financial issues for those of all ages and stages of life.
9:15 PM
Refreshments Winnipeg Style and Live Entertainment with Sheila Fink and Kinzey Posen
Sunday, March 3
8:00 AMDoors Open
8:00 to 9:00 AM Registration and Breakfast
Shacharit
9:00 AM
Legacy Films 101
Shirit Pais and Yolanda Papini-Pollock
We all know a family member who has interesting stories to tell; stories that were never documented, that took a course of a lifetime to form. Recording these lifelong stories will help you “hold on to the stories you love and the stories you never want to lose.”
Become your family historian and learn to produce a meaningful legacy video.
This workshop will introduce you to the basic skills necessary to produce an heirloom video biography. Here you will acquire the essential steps, tools and foundations of documenting stories that will be cherished by family members for generations to come.
Yolanda Papini-Pollock and Shirith Pais first met in Winnipeg. They found they had more in common than their Israeli backgrounds. Both had lost a parent and wished they had more to remember them by. It was an instant friendship and the genesis of their partnership in Shirland Productions, a company that produces legacy films.
Happy Birthday First Born Son
Larry Jay Tish
Larry Jay Tish will present a reading of his one-man show “Happy Birthday First Born Son.” Your mother calls you on your 49th birthday and says, “You should have never been born!” What would you say? Come find out what Larry had to say in this funny and moving portrait of a son and his Jewish mother.
Telling Our Stories - Writing Jewish Fiction in the ‘Peg
Sidura Ludwig
Plenty of Jewish writers and storytellers have employed the Winnipeg setting in their work. However, there are still plenty more stories to be told! Join novelist, Sidura Ludwig, for a fiction-writing workshop drawing on the Jewish creative experience in Winnipeg
Arie Lavy
Can you Survive Captivity? (Continued next page)
Arie who is an active member of the Winnipeg Jewish Community was once a prisoner of war in Egypt in 1973, when time stood still! In this riveting expose, Arie reveals the psychological and physical hardships of captivity and his return to freedom.
Homosexuality and Halakhah
Rabbi Steve Greenberg
Two Orthodox responses to homosexuality presently offered by trusted halakhic authorities could ground policies of welcome for gay and lesbian members. One is thirty years old; the other was only put forward recently. Recently, the Conservative Movement’s Rabbinical Assembly produced much bolder “Responsa” on the same questions. Participants will explore the various “Responsa” with regards to the issue at hand and how they shed light on the halakhic process itself.
10:15 AM
A Bat Mitzvah in the Great Wall of China
Aníbal Mass
Jews and Judaism in China have had a long history. On August 2012, Cantor Mass had the history-making opportunity to officiate at what was possibly the first Bat Mitzvah on the Great Wall.
This session will explore the history of the Jews in China while the Chazzan shares amazing photos and videos of this unique event.
Maror: Burden or Blessing?
Harlene Winnick Appelman
The session is an original animation on the “maror” section of the Passover Seder and an interactive conversation around its meaning within the context of the Passover message. This session was made possible by funds from The Covenant Foundation.
Joining the Clubs: The Fall and Rise of Jews at Yale and other Elite Universities
Dan Oren
From the 1920s through the 1960s quotas and other forms of limiting the numbers of Jews and other undesirable minorities amongst the students and faculty were secretly practiced at Yale, Harvard, Princeton and other elite North American universities. The story of how the bigotry that permitted such restrictions and how the quotas were removed shaped higher education and elite workspaces throughout the U.S.A. and Canada. This session will focus on the example at Yale University in New Haven, which despite the Hebrew at the center of the Yale seal had a noxious informal quota for decades.
The Wondering Wandering Jewess: Conversations with my Choreographer
Leah Chwaiewsky Bassett
From her early performances at the tender age of three, Leah’s story takes the audience from her debuts in Winnipeg to her acceptance at Toronto’s renowned Second City. After packing up her downtown Winnipeg apartment and cramming it into her 1995 Honda Civic, she hits the road for Toronto to further her improvisation training. Little did she know that the World’s greatest choreographer and director, the Master of the Universe, had a much grander vision for her…. From humble beginnings, Leah, the “Wondering Wandering Jewess”, has gone from Showbiz to Shulbiz! Join Leah Chwaiewsky Bassett as she shares the story of how her life dramatically changed when she called on the greatest “Producer” of all time to ask for “stage directions”.
The Art of Paper Cutting
Jeanette Kuvin Oren
Participants will learn how to do paper cutting and will make a Jewish-themed paper cutting in class. (This session will be 2 hours long)
Yoga Shalom
Ruth Livingston
This is a Shacharit service with yoga poses matched to the music of the morning prayers. It was developed by Cantor Lisa Levine with Carol Krucoff, as a way to embody prayer. It is designed to be accessible for anyone wanting to try it, with accommodations for those who are limited physically.
11:30 AM
You’ve Made Your God Too Small: Some Inescapable Truths about Religion and Spirituality
Rabbi Larry Pinsker
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman once said: “Pocahontas talking to an enchanted tree and living peacefully among the birds and forest animals: That’s spirituality. Pocahontas receiving a dues statement from her local synagogue: That’s religion.” This session will investigate if this is just glib, or if there really is a difference between “Jewish religion” and “Jewish spirituality”?
Mystery and History of the Tallit
Kedma Cantor
This session is a visual and descriptive journey through the history and tradition of a uniquely Jewish garment. The who, why and what of the Jewish Prayer shawl
Doing Jewish Genealogy: Finding the Amazing Secrets You Never Knew
Dan Oren
The explosion of data on the Internet now allows us to find our genealogical history going back hundreds of years across generations, and to do in a few weeks what once might have taken decades. What was once a dry and dusty pursuit by antiquarians is now possible to anyone with an Internet connection. A field that was once a collection of names and dates can also become as interesting as any best-selling novel. This session will provide basic training of how to use the internet websites that make Jewish genealogy so accessible today, and, as a model for your own investigation, share two heart-warming examples of how one 110 year old tombstone in Poland opened a world of beauty, and how a lost photograph from 1926 reunited a family scattered worldwide by the Holocaust.
The Syrian Revolution- What Does This Mean for the Jews?
Shimshon Elazar
The session presents a survey of the events in Syria since Feb-2010; profiles of revolutionary groups; communities and confessions at risk in Syria and the ramifications for Israeli security.
Put Her In Her Place: A Conversation Between Two Exiled Jewish Winnipeg Writers
Brenda Barrie and Sidura Ludwig
Jewish characters in fiction are as unique and distinctive as the communities their authors come from. Writers Sidura Ludwig and Brenda Barrie discuss location in writing and what it means to be a Jewish writer from the Peg.
12:30- 1:30 PMLunch and schmoozing
Mincha
1:30 PM
Jewish Life in Brazil
Rubens Bader
During this session Rubens will present a 20 minute video about the immigration of the Jewish people to Brazil, starting with the very first immigrants who came to the northeastern region of the country then presenting the subsequent waves of immigration and culminating in a description of Jewish life in Brazil today. After the video, Rubens will touch on the Portuguese Inquisition towards the Jewish people in Brazil. He will also talk about the first synagogue of the Americas which is found in the city of Recife, in the Brazilian northeast and how Jewish life is celebrated in other parts of the country today.
The Six Amazing Women of the Exodus
Rabbi Ari Ellis
In reward for the righteous women of that generation, the people of Israel were redeemed from Egypt.
The Art of Jeanette Kuvin Oren – Commissions for Synagogues Around the World
Jeanette Kuvin Oren
Participants will learn how to do paper cutting and will make a Jewish-themed paper cutting in class.
“Shabbat Shalom” A Musical Presentation
Len Udow
“Shabbat Shalom” a musical presentation based on the new melodies composed and written to welcome in Shabbat in prayer and song. Come, listen and sing!
Mandala Workshop
Tzafi Weinberg
Participants are invited to create a mandala made within a meditative setting.
Creating Mandala (sacred circle) is an art process that reflects individual’s consciousness through symbolic patterns, and is also a way to connect to our soul and spirit. Mandala is used in the Jewish tradition to help the process of wholeness, healing and spiritual transformation
2:45 PM
My Father’s Story: the Development of Krav Maga
Karel Skripal
In this interview, Karel Skripal will reveal the fascinating life story
(Continued next page)
of his father Karel Skripal Senior. Skripal will take the audience on a
journey back to Nazi occupied Europe describing his father’s involvement in the creation and development of Krav Maga, the Israeli martial art. Born in Czechoslovakia and involved in the Underground movement, Skripal Senior was captured by the Nazis while trying to free people from persecution. After surviving both Buchenwald and Auschwitz he secretly taught Krav Maga in Prague before bringing his family to Canada in 1986 where his only student was his own son. Today, Skripal Junior carries the flame of his father’s art and passion to his own students.
Programs of Passion
Harlene Winnick Appelman
This session is an overview of the possibilities of family education seen through the lens of the 21st Century. This session is a combination of the “What to,” “Want to,” and “How to” of Family Education. This session was made possible by funds from The Covenant Foundation.
“Its Good We Left”: The Image of the Shtetl in Anti-Shtetl Yiddish Poems
Itay Zutra
The contemporary image of the Eastern-European Shtetl is of a poor yet intimate and warm place. This sentimental image stems from such popular songs as “Mayn shtetele Belz”, but mostly from the movie Fiddler on the Roof. This is how the majority of American Jews still imagine the Shtetl. This lecture will discuss an alternative more complicated and realistic image of the Shtetl presented by Yiddish poets in New York before the Holocaust. These poets left their home towns never to look back. If it was so good there why did we leave? The lecture will discuss this alternative image as a way to engage in a more sophisticated and critical image of our Eastern European past and heritage.
Sometimes The Golem is a Girl
Brenda Barrie
This session is an historical and literary overview of the image of the Golem in Jewish literature and how this enigmatic, typically male, Frankenstein-like figure continues to appear in modern works.
According to legend, the first Golem was created in the 16th century by Rabbi Judah Loew in Prague, to protect the ghetto there.
The Golem, now in vastly different forms is still present in the writings of contemporary Jewish writers: Michael Chabon in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Cynthia Ozick, in The Puttermesser Papers, and Marge Piercy in He She and It, among others.
The Golem is a deeply meaningful literary and mystical devise in Jewish literature from the 16th century to the present day.
Brenda Barrie will discuss why this image persists in Jewish storytelling and how the Golem has changed over the centuries. “
Zumba, Israeli Style
Claudia Chernitsky
Join this dynamic session that combines Cha Cha Cha, Cumbia, Meringe bollywood, and dancing to Israeli music and rhythms. Move to the beat, let loose have fun. Join the party! (Psst … exercise in disguise.)
4:00 PM
A “Wonder” full ride
Ethel Amihude
Ethel presents a unique perspective on the wondrous sights and sounds of a five year old’s world. She takes the audience on an adventure through the eyes of a child to discover the meaning and fun of friendship, laughter, sharing, and fighting, discipline and learning in a Jewish environment where the adults learn as much as the children. This session provides tips for parents on positive child rearing and on how to help their children reach their potential.
Meditating With Maimonides: Experiencing Love and Awe in the Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed
Rabbi Alan Green
This session, will give participants an opportunity to study some short meditative texts drawn from Moses Maimonides’ great philosophical text: Guide for the Perplexed. These texts will be read and discussed in English, although Hebrew will also be available for Hebrew speakers.
Based on these texts, participants will then experience 15 to 20 minutes meditating images and symbols drawn from the Guide; in order to get a small taste of “Devekut” Consciousness–effortless clinging to our own Divine nature.
Solomon Ary From Bialystock, Poland
Eli Herscovitch
This session will reveal the moving story of Solomon Ary who was born in Bialystock, Poland and then moved to Canada at the age of eighteen during the Great Depression. One year after his arrival, while trying to survive in Montreal, the Nazis invaded Poland and killed his entire family. During his life Ary tried to stay positive, he married and worked hard. He became famous for his deep knowledge of Jewish stories and folk songs and also had a reputation for always helping those in need. At the age of 65 he began writing stories and brought the heart of Bialystock back to life. Ary's unique writing style is engaging and uplifting. Solomon Ary became good friends with Itzak Manger and Issac Bashevis Singer.
One of Ary's original and touching stories will also be read and occasional live Klezmer style music will be played, for added flavor.
Tikkun Olam: Lessons From Rural Kenya
Jonathan Paterson
As social justice and international development become increasingly common topics of discussion, understandingly the connection between them and the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, is becoming increasingly relevant. For the past two summers, Jonathan has spent time volunteering in rural Kenya, helping build schools, as well as learning about the struggles of the local people in the country. Through these experiences, he will discuss the lessons learnt abroad about Tikkun Olam and the value of helping others.
Diaspora Zion
Rabbi Steve Greenberg
The American environmental movement is calling people to restore the Earth by reconnecting deeply to the soils from which we are nurtured. Young Jews have begun to hear this call in the creation of the Jewish Farm School, Eden Village Farm and Kayam Farm. Each of these projects and others like them, advocate a return to the Earth and to farming as an expression of contemporary Jewish identity and praxis. For many Jews of the 19th century, it was a similar romantic spirit that gave birth to Zionism. Return to the land was central to A. D. Gordon and other proto-agrarian Zionist thinkers. However, for those of us who live in the Diaspora, this new Earth-centeredness is not tied to Zion. Are young aspiring Diaspora Jewish farmers in the global age post-Zionist? As Jews, can we return to the Earth anywhere or only in Israel?
5:00 PM
Dead Man Walking: Rabbi Akiva and the Creation of the Mourners Kaddish
Rabbi David Cantor
This session is an exploration, through text and discussion, of the origins of the Mourner’s Kaddish, with the goal of bringing greater meaning and relevance to our participation (both as mourners and as members of a prayer quorum) in the ritual of “Saying Kaddish.”
Life Lessons in the Land of Israel
Danita Aziza
The various life lessons learned by a 3rd generation Canadian deciding to live in Israel.
What is it to be a Secular Humanist Jew
Harold Shuster
This session will serve as an introduction to secular humanistic Judaism as practiced and presented by the Sholem Aleichem Community of Winnipeg.
The Canaanites: new evidence from the Early Bronze Age at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel
Haskel Greenfield
This session will present the recently gathered evidence for the early Canaanite (Early Bronze Age) occupation at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, most famous as Gath of the Philistines (Goliath’s hometown). Participants will be introduced to Canaanite culture and the amazing revelations of what was one of the largest walled cities in the region. Participants will learn about the Early Bronze Age (3000-2500 BCE) neighbourhood and the story told about the inhabitants daily lives through the objects uncovered. From trading and recording transactions to details of animal sacrificial practice participants will gain an understanding of how Tell es-Safi/Gath fit into the regional context as an important political and economic centre from its earliest occupation, through its colonization by the Philistines, Judeans, and until its destruction by the Assyrians.
Adam and Steve, Amy and Eve: Finding a Unique Marital Ritual for Queer Jews
Rabbi Steve Greenberg
Weddings are pure theatre and marriage is anything but. What do we mean when we stand under a chuppah? This session will ask deep questions about marriage, intimacy, love, sex, reproduction, and about their Jewish expression in kiddushin. Finally the audience will explore what all this means for gay and lesbian couples who want to tie the knot.
Closing schmooze
