Jerusalem Limmud FSU event to highlight Nobel prize theme

Jewish learning festival for Russian speakers follows successful events in Ukraine, Moscow.

By JONAH MANDEL
Limmud FSU Jerusalem 2010, a festival of Jewish learning for Russian speakers on the theme of the Nobel Prize, was launched Wednesday at the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv.
The Jerusalem Limmud, which is set to take place in July, will be the third this year on the Nobel theme, after successful events in Ukraine and Moscow. The focus of this series is the 26 Nobel laureates from Israel and former Soviet Union Jewry.
Limmud FSU is an international movement for informal Jewish education based on the UK model founded in the 1970s. Chaim Chesler – who served, among other positions, as head of the Jewish Agency’s delegation to the Former Soviet Union and as treasurer of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization – set up the Russian-speaking model in 2006. His aim was to create an educational-social-cultural framework for advancing pluralistic Jewish discourse for Russian-speakers in the Russian Federation, other countries of the former Soviet Union, the United States and Israel.
Speaking at Wednesday’s launch, Matthew Bronfman – one of the prominentsupporters of Limmud and chair of its steering committee – explainedthe meaning of the program and what it represented.
Science and Technology Minister Daniel Herschkowitz told theparticipants that Limmud connected to the Jewish story of each andevery person.
Dalia Rabin, daughter of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, noted thelong-term link between the Rabin Center and Limmud, and Chesler spokeof the choice to hold the launch event at the there.
The two new co-chairs of Limmud FSU Jerusalem were also introduced:veteran journalist Yaron Dekel, who has been exposed to the vibrantresurgence of Jewish identity in events in Russia and Ukraine, andacclaimed theater and screen actress Yevgeniya Dodina.


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