Presenters - K

Minouche Kaftel is a professional singer and actress and has studied meditation and psychology. She performs regularly in London for the Spiroark and internationally, being the first South African to sing in Russia. She received a Millennium award from the Jewish Music Institute, creating a CD and booklet.

Sessions:

• Minouche Kaftel Sings Spiritual Music

Deborah Kahn-Harris lectures in Bible at Leo Baeck College and is a PhD student in the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield, where she researches feminist Bible criticism. She also works as part of the rabbinic team at Southgate and District Reform Synagogue.

Sessions:

• Interpreting the Word of God in Other Lands: What Jews Can Learn from Post-colonial Readings of the Bible
• Utterly Rejected: Theology in Crisis in the Book of Lamentations

Organisation: New Jewish Thought
Website: http://www.kahn-harris.org

Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist at Goldsmiths College, London. He is currently working on a project looking at British Jewish communal leadership since the early 1990s. He is the convenor of New Jewish Thought, an organisation fostering dialogue and raising neglected issues in Anglo-Jewry.

Sessions:

• Developing Dialogue Within the UK Jewish Community
• The Elephant in the Room: What Do British Jews Not Talk About?

Organisation: Jewish Agency, Movement for Reform Judaism

Meirav Kallush is the Jewish Agency shlicha for the Reform Movement and RSY-Netzer. She is a graduate of Hebrew University majoring in Jewish philosophy. She is sure that Jerusalem and London are the best cities in the world and that Facebook is another attempt to revive kibbutz life.

Sessions:

• The Elephant in the Room: What Do British Jews Not Talk About?
• What's Love Got to Do with It?

Organisation: University of Toronto
Website: http://www.fineart.utoronto.ca/faculty/kaplan.html

Louis Kaplan is Associate Professor of Photography Studies and Visual Culture in the Graduate Department of Art at the University of Toronto, associate faculty member in Jewish Studies and Director of the Institute of Communication and Culture. His latest book is 'American Exposures: Photography and Community in the Twentieth Century'.

Sessions:

• Kabbalah Surrealism: the Counter-Cultural Art and Life of Wallace Berman
• Postmodern Jewish Wedding: Reinventing Ritual
• Reflections on ReJewvenation and Command J: Jewish Laws, Digital Arts
• Yahweh Rastafari!: Matisyahu and the Paradoxes of Hasidic Reggae Superstardom

Organisation: Artists & Musicians for Israel
Website: http://www.artists.org.il

Yehudah Katz's career as a professional musician has brought him critical acclaim as a singer, guitarist and composer as well as a producer of musical recordings and director of numerous music festivals. For the past 14 years, Katz and Israeli rock band Reva L'sheva have performed in concert across the globe.

Sessions:

• Israel - Centre of the World
• Lord, I Was Born a Ramblin' Man
• Power of Music

Organisation: Pears Foundation

Charles Keidan is Director of The Pears Foundation, (www.pearsfoundation.org.uk), a British based organisation seeking to put the Jewish values of social justice into practice in Britain and abroad.

Sessions:

• Dragons Den: So You Think You're an Entrepreneur?
• Philanthropy: Giving to Change the World for Good

Organisation: London School of Jewish Studies
Website: http://www.lsjs.ac.uk

Maureen Kendler is Head of Educational Programming at the London School of Jewish Studies. She has a teaching background and is a UJIA Ashdown Fellow. She was awarded 'Educator of the Year' in 2004 by the London Jewish Cultural Centre. Teaching texts is what she likes to do best.

Sessions:

• Something Old, Something New, Something Remembered, Something Wrong: Jewishly Displaced Objects (1 of 4)
• Something Old, Something New, Something Remembered, Something Wrong: Jewishly Displaced Objects (2 of 4)
• Something Old, Something New, Something Remembered, Something Wrong: Jewishly Displaced Objects (3 of 4)
• Something Old, Something New, Something Remembered, Something Wrong: Jewishly Displaced Objects (4 of 4)
• Where Heaven Meets Earth: Elisha, the Shunamite Woman and the 1882 Married Woman's Property Act

Rachel Keren is head of 'Kolech' – the orthodox feminist organisation in Israel. Born to Ephraim z"l Urbach and Chanah - scholarly parents who sparked her love for Torah - she graduated from Hebrew University and taught Jewish studies in Israel and abroad for many years, especially in Midreshet Ein Hanatziv – a yeshiva for women.

Sessions:

• A Level Praying Field? Women's Tefilla Groups Across the Globe
• Do Clothes Makes the Man?
• Orthodox Feminism - Confronting the Oxymoron
• The Woman Who Spat in Rabbi Meir's Face

Susie Kessler is the former coordinator of the National Center for Jewish Healing. For the past six years, she has been the programme director for Makom, The Center for Meditation and Spirituality at the new JCC in Manhattan, the first to house and support a programme of this kind.

Sessions:

• 'Is Your Suffering Meaningful to You?'; What Jewish Healing Tells Us About Life and Loss
• 'U-vacharta Ba-chaim': Choose Life!

Website: http://www.ShirLaLa.com

Shira Kline travels throughout the United States and internationally bringing a dynamic, interactive program of joy and spirit, story and song. She works with children, teachers, parents, synagogues and schools and has released three popular albums of outrageously hip Jewish kiddie rock. Shira is also a founding company member of Storahtelling.

Sessions:

• Family Shabbat service
• Open Your Mouth, Take a Deep Breath and Sing! Repertoire Building in the Jewish Early Childhood and Religious School Classroom
• Shabbat Music Meditation
• ShirLaLa Family Concert
• Take a Deep Breath and Sing!

Brian Klug is Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at St. Benet's Hall, Oxford; Honorary Fellow, Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at Southampton University; Associate Editor, Patterns of Prejudice; co-founder, Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights; co-founder, Independent Jewish Voices; author and broadcaster.

Sessions:

• Developing Dialogue Within the UK Jewish Community
• Panel Discussion: 'What Will Anglo-Jewry Look Like in Twenty Years Time?'
• The Promised Land and the New World: Seeing Zion in America

Website: http://www.kolrina.org

An ensemble of versatile singers with infectious energy and a sparkling repertoire of their own unique compositions - this is Kol Rina, a Jewish acapella group from the UK. The beauty of this mixed vocal ensemble is its talent for bringing traditional texts to life with enchanting original melodies. Drawing on eclectic influences, it's Jewish music as you've never heard it before.

Sessions:

• Kol Rina in Concert

Born in the East End of London Bernard Kops is one of the best-known, most admired playwrights of his time, achieving recognition with his first play 'The Hamlet of Stepney Green'. His autobiography, 'The World Is A Wedding', was published worldwide. The second instalment 'Shalom Bomb' received great acclaim.

Sessions:

• Readings from a Playwright
• Readings from a Playwright - the World Is a Wedding

Organisation: NGO Monitor
Website: http://www.ngo-monitor.org

Dan Kosky grew up in the UK Jewish youth movement world, working for FZY before becoming a PR consultant. Having made aliyah in 2003, he served as a combat infantry soldier in the IDF. Dan is now Communications Director for Jerusalem based human rights watchdog and research institute, NGO Monitor.

Sessions:

• Crash Course in Zionist Thought: Me and My Zionism, Herzl and Ahad Ha'am (1 of 2)
• Crash Course in Zionist Thought: the Land of Love and War - Rav Kook, AD Gordon and Jabotinsky (2 of 2)
• Morality and the IDF: a Soldier's Tale
• NGOs, the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Exploitation of Human Rights

Website: http://www.3gh.com.au

Natalie Krasnostein is the writer and performer of a one-woman show 'In God’s Bedroom' and founder of '3GH' – the 3rd Generation Holocaust descendants project which explores contemporary questions of Jewish identity in relation to the Holocaust.

Sessions:

• '3GH' - 3rd Generation Holocaust Descendants Project (1 of 2)
• '3GH' - 3rd Generation Holocaust Workshop (2 of 2)
• 'In God's Bedroom' (2 of 2)
• Jewish Arts Panel
• The Making of 'In God's Bedroom' (1 of 2)

Adam Kraus is a finalist in Hebrew Studies at Oxford University and an alumnus of Yeshivat Har Etzion (Gush) and the Hebrew University Beit Midrash (Havruta). He aims to make Jewish learning relevant, useful and accessible to all.

Sessions:

• Spielberg's 'Pre-Crime' in the World of the Rabbis
• The Afterlife in the Bible

Organisation: Initiative for Islamic Studies
Website: http://www.halimakrausen.com

Halima Krausen is a Muslim theologian, spiritual advisor and teacher for Muslims in Germany, occasionally teaching and studying in Great Britain, the US and the Middle East.

Sessions:

• A Muslim Reads the Siddur
• Muslim and Jewish Views on Creation (1 of 3)
• Muslim and Jewish Views on Creation (2 of 3)
• Muslim and Jewish Views on Creation (3 of 3)
• Territory and Identity (1 of 2)
• Territory and Identity (2 of 2)

Organisation: Temple Beth Zion, Brookline MA
Website: http://www.tbzbrookline.org

Claudia Kreiman is the assistant rabbi at Temple Beth Zion, Brookline, Massachusetts. Born in Chile and ordained by the Schechter Institute, she was the rabbi for NOAM in Israel and Boston’s Jewish Community Day School. She was a fellow at Rikma and Bnai Jeshurun in New York and a faculty member of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship.

Sessions:

• Dealing with Loss - an Experiential Analysis of Avelut (Mourning) Traditions
• Prayer: a Journey of the Heart or a Burden? Thinking, Struggling and Learning About T'filah (1 of 2)
• Prayer: a Journey of the Heart or a Burden? Thinking, Struggling and Learning About T'filah (2 of 2)
• Praying with Children