Limmud Toronto 2020

A text-based look at how Jewish tradition has approached intermarriage , with an emphasis on recognizing trends, delineating opportunities and threats, and building an approach that is both inclusive and steeped in tradition.

This discussion focuses on one potential way of modernizing Holocaust education to better deal with the realities of life in 2020: the inclusion of perpetrator narratives. We will have a broad discussion of some of the typical mediums and contexts of Holocaust education, and I will propose some ideas of how the inclusion of perpetrator narratives, long ignored, will help bolster students’ understanding of the Holocaust, its role in Jewish history, and our contemporary relationship with it.

The ascent of human often seems to be just the opposite. The Dreyfus trial began to install the idea that individuals could be held responsible for their personal actions. By the time we get to Nuremberg we witness for the first time the concept that individuals acting on behalf of the state could be held personally responsible for their actions. But for what kinds of crimes? How do we put someone on trial who is presumed guilty? The concept of human rights was a new idea and in this lecture you will see how the idea of individual human rights is enshrined in a new legal concept of international law.

Theodor Herzl lived from 1860 to 1904. The country that he envisioned has existed for over 70 years. So should anyone care about him any more? Illustrated by items in his collection of Herzl memorabilia (the largest in the world), David will tell Herzl's story and share what he believes are the four important lessons from Herzl's life that are as relevant today as they were in 1904 or 1948. From New York's Fifth Avenue to a distressed suburb of Chicago to life during the COVID-19 pandemic, Herzl continues to teach us that tomorrow can be better than today, and that each of us has the power to help make that so.

"Spielberg and the Sephardi: Testimonies of Jewish Refugees from Islamic Lands" is an exploration of oral testimonies from the last generation of Sephardi Jews born in North Africa, the Middle East, and Iran. Dr. Henry Green, founder of the Sephardi Voices Digital Archive, will moderate a panel discussion featuring Toronto Sephardi Voices interview participants, exploring their lived experiences in their home countries during the 1940s to 1980s, when state-sanctioned discrimination, violence, and political unrest saw Sephardi Jews displaced as refugees. "Spielberg and the Sephardi: Testimonies of Jewish Refugees from Islamic Lands" is a response to the need for better access to Sephardi history and culture in Jewish educational spaces, as well as education on human rights abuses that have impacted Jews both connected to and beyond the Holocaust. The panel will touch on the role of oral history in preserving life stories for human rights records and opens a window onto the Sephardi community’s survival and resilience.

The premise of this Zoom teleplay: What if Yehuda HaLevi, born 1075, Hebrew poet of Golden Age Islamic Spain, was participating in real time, in 2020 Zoom calls, with former members of a college rock band that played together at Brandeis University?  Yehuda HaLevi, invited by 21st century Toronto Jew, Izzy Zimmerman, finds himself trapped by Coronavirus in Izzy’s bubble. Forty years ago, Izzy was one of four members of a college rock band. After graduation, each went their separate way. But during the 2020 Corona lockdown, there blossoms an intense Zoom reunion among the former band-mates, with HaLevi a participant. In those Zooms, they are inspired - by HaLevi’s time travel insights into his own “Golden Age” and his poetic vision.  With memories and imagination interweaving, the band reunites, and "travels back in time" to their personal Golden Age: Freshman Spring, Brandeis University, 1976.  Perhaps their reunion tour is a chance to “try it again for the first time” and acquire grandparent-age insight into their youthful life and loves.

Jason Guberman, co-founder and coordinator of Diarna: the Geo-Museum of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Life, will talk about how a diverse, international team of volunteers has worked for over a decade to digitally document endangered Jewish historical sites, ranging from synagogues on the edge of the Sahara to Jewish fortresses in Arabia.

How much do North American Jews know about the Jewish communities in the Far East? Usually, not so much! Before I learned of a job opportunity to serve Kehilat Shanghai, I had no idea there was a significant Jewish community (and Jewish history) in many cities around Asia. In this presentation, I'll share a bit of historical context especially about Shanghai's Jewish history, and provide a sense of the landscape of the current situation in the Asian Jewish communities (both pre- and post- pandemic).

This presentation will discuss the founding of the Orthodox school system for girls, Bais Yaakov, in interwar Poland by Sarah Schenirer, a divorced seamstress with an eighth-grade education. It will explore the character of the movement as a "revolution in the name of tradition."