 | Nathan Abramsknows everything about Kosher Cinema from noodle kugel to nookie! Nathan is a seasoned Limmudnik and senior lecturer in film studies at Bangor University. He will be presenting on Jewish food and sex in film-with clips! |
 | David Abulafiahas an international reputation as a historian of the Mediterranean world. His recent book on the Mediterranean, The Great Sea, has soared up the best-seller charts on the back of brilliant reviews, and his lectures have been a huge hit at Limmud in previous years. His family goes back to those Abulafias – so an interest in Sephardi life over the centuries is in the blood. Here is a session for those who love their history. |
 | Simon Baron Cohenis a star of the world of neuroscience and popular science. His research on psychology, autism, gender and the brain have put him at the forefront of modern debates on what we can know about the human mind. Well-known from his books and the lecture circuit, he will open a great discussion of how science and the modern world interact. His blues and klezmer band of dads from Cambridge is also available for Bar Mitzvahs. |
 | Yossi Ben Artziwho was until two years ago the Rector of the University of Haifa, is an expert in Israeli geography and history. He is a born story-teller, who renders the drama and excitement of history of Land of Israel, its Jewish and Palestinian stories intertwined, in vivid terms. |
 | Daniel Boyarinis a famous paradox: a trendy Talmudist; a scholar from the highest level of traditional training who writes brilliantly about sex, gender and the politics of the Jewish world. He has even entered the world of Israeli film as an icon of the fashionable intellectual…This will be a high level session on Talmudic texts that will be right at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship: from Berkeley, here to us… |
 | Daniel Caineris a comic singer of national reknown who keeps his audiences begging for more. He received a standing ovation for his performance at Limmud Conference last December. He subjects our lives as Jews in England to close inspection and concocts anecdotal. "Does on stage what I do on the page" (Howard Jacobson). "With his stories within stories Cainer reminds me of Bunüel... if Bunüel had been Jewish and born in Leeds" (Alan Bennett). "The new comic bard of Anglo-Jewry" (The Jewish Chronicle). |
 | Laliv Clenmanis the new Lecturer in Rabbinic Literature at Leo Baeck College and Visiting Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London. Already loved by her students for her wonderful classes, join her in an exciting study of this radical rabbinic saying about Jewish identity. Come and discuss Talmudic tales about who decides who we are and discover something new about our own identity. |
 | Ruth Deechtaught law at Oxford before being elected as Principal of St Anne’s College (1991-2004). She chaired the UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority for seven years, and oversaw the legalization of stem cell research. She has been a Governor of the BBC, the first Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education, and national campus ombudsman for 147 universities! She has been a life peer since 2005. It is hard to imagine anyone who could speak with more authority on the burning issue of anti-Semitism and extremism on campus. |
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Nicholas de Langeis the translator of many novels, stories and poems from Hebrew, including his prize-winning translation of Journey to the End of the Millennium by A. B. Yehoshua (1999). He is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and was Professor of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Cambridge. |
 | Jonathan Freedlandis that rare case of a Jewish journalist whom the Jews actually respect – from the Guardian, noch. His intelligence and poise and decency have endeared him to many a reader, prepared previously to sneer. How do the Jews appear in the media? This session is your chance to have a say. |
 | Katie Greenemigrated from the UK to Israel in 1985. International journalist and broadcaster, who switched her talents to film and graduated from the Ma'aleh Film School of Jerusalem in 2003. Her current film – to become available on the internet later this year – focuses on bringing 21st Century Jewish/Israeli dilemmas to the screen. Do Israeli Jews see things differently? She will be showing 3 short films as part of her presentation. |
 | David Hillmanis a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge. He is a Shakespearean Israeli with training in psychoanalysis. His next publication is on Shakespeare and Freud; this talk will draw on some of the research for that book. It will stop short of claiming that Shakespeare was Jewish. |
 | Anthony Juliuslawyer to princesses, scourge of anti-Semites, public intellectual. Anthony’s last book really exposed the long tradition of anti-Semitic writing in England and, in particular, how often anti-Israel and anti-Semitic arguments overlap. This session can be guaranteed to be polemical and stimulating! |
 | Ed Kessleris one of the most influential and engaged participants in Jewish–Christian–Muslim Relations in Britain. His contribution in this field was recently recognised with the award of an MBE. He founded the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, which runs courses on relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Is there a more important and pressing topic for society today? Ed will be in conversation with Dr Joseph Meri and will be discussing some of the most challenging issues in the Jewish–Muslim encounter. Come and find out if people from different religious communities can actually understand each other. |
 | Vivi Lachsis a British teacher, Yiddishist, historian. She sings with Klezmer Klub, researches Yiddish songs of London and interviews East Enders. Her Limmud presentations are riveting combining music and social history bringing alive Yiddlsh songs from the shtetl of London. She is currently doing a PhD in History and Ethnomusicology. |
 | Clive LawtonClive was one of the founders of Limmud and is now its Senior Consultant. He sits on the Metropolitan Police Authority, is scholar-in-residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, is on the faculties of the European Centre for Leadership Training and the London School of Jewish Studies, is a magistrate and Chair of Shap, the national Working Party on Education in World Religions. Clive works internationally in the fields of organisational leadership and community development, broadcasts widely and has published about a dozen books. |
 | David Lehmannis a sociologist with a difference: he may be an expert on South America, but he has also spent years conducting a study of Charedi Jewish groups in Israel. Ever wanted to know what really goes on behind the locked doors of Mea She’arim? David is going to discuss that hottest of topics, the arranged marriage. Come and learn what lies behind “matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match” in a modern community! |
 | Diana Liptonwill change the way you look at any text she brings into the class. A celebrated teacher in England and Jerusalem, her interactive session will explore just how strange and fascinatingly rich Jewish commentators on the bible can be. Prepare to be taken to a new level of appreciation. |
 | Rob Marcusis Consultant Haematologist at King's College Hospital in London, formerly of Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. He has a long standing interest in the wider social and cultural implications of advances in medical science and has entitled his talk "Thomas Hodgkin and the Jews ". |
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Jim Marrowis Professor Emeritus of Art History, Princeton University, and Honorary Keeper of Illuminated Manuscripts at the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, England). He is a specialist in late medieval art chiefly from northern Europe, with particular interest in illuminated manuscripts and questions of meaning in works of religious art. In the course of his career he has come across a good many works of stolen art, among them works stolen by the Nazis during World War II (e.g., from the Rothschilds).
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 | Daniel Mendelsohn It is a real coup to get Daniel here for Limmud. Celebrated both for his wonderful articles in the New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, and for his extraordinary international best-seller, The Lost, which told of his search for his family’s record in the Holocaust, this will be his first trip to England since his sell-out appearance at Jewish Book Week, Daniel is one of the funniest and most insightful lecturers you can hear anywhere. He will be joined in his session by Phillipe Sands, to discuss their longing for the culture of old Jewish life in Europe. |
 | Josef Meria specialist in the history of the Jews of the Islamic world and in comparative religion and is the Academic Director at the Centre for the Study of Muslim–Jewish Relations. He was born in the United States but he hails from a Jerusalemite family. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and has lived in Cairo, Damascus, Jerusalem and in Amman where he oversaw a major Qur'anic exegesis project at the Jordanian Royal Court. He previously held visiting appointments at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London and the University of California at Berkeley. |
 | Chaim Milikowskyis professor of Talmud at Bar Ilan University, and a scholar of remarkable learning and depth. He is amazing at taking a question that at first sight looks like an easy or trivial issue and showing just how wonderfully complex and revealing it really is. This will be a high level session for those who love Jewish thought in all its rigour and quirky brilliance. |
 | Emanuele Ottolenghiis a political analyst who you need to hear. Of course you can read him in the Jewish Chronicle (and other organs of repute), but his analysis of the situation on the Middle East is revelatory for its trenchant combination of control over the facts and willingness to face the ideologies head on. This session is guaranteed to get you going – and thinking for a long time afterwards. |
 | Janet Reibsteinis a psychologist, psychotherapist and visiting professor (NHS) at the University of Exeter. She has become famous for her work on families and in particular on marriage. If ever books could change your life, hers are it! Ever thought that the Jewish family was the cause of all your problems? This might just be the necessary session for you.
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 | Stefan Reifis the former head of the Genizah in Cambridge, the most important treasure trove of documents about medieval Jewish life in the world. Stefan is an internationally renowned expert and lecturer who will open the doors of your mind into the lost world of an older Judaism – which still has such an importance for our Jewish services and ways of life. |
 | Jennie Rosenfeldhas just co-authored with Dr David Ribner what may be the first sex guide for Orthodox readers. She has a rare combination of skills as a student of Talmud, English literature and Hasidism. She is an expert too at getting a great discussion going. For those who really want to know about Jewish sex. |
 | Pinchas Rothis an extraordinary young educator with a real gift for bringing medieval Halakhic texts to life. Those who came to his packed session at the last Limmud still talk of the ease and insight of his interactive discussions. |
 | Miri Rubina regular on radio and television, is one of the country’s best-known historians. She has published on the Virgin Mary (a great subject for a Jewish girl), and a huge best-seller in the Penguin History of the Middle Ages. Miri is a wonderful lecturer and for anyone who loves history in any form, this is a must. |
 | Philippe Sands QCwill be well-known to readers of the New York Review of Books and Vanity Fair – as an international lawyer of real distinction, used to speaking at the International Court of Justice. As Professor of Law at London he has written Lawless World (2005) and Torture Team (2008), as well as brilliant contributions to our understanding of Chernobyl, international environment law, and international criminal law. He also comes to us as vice-president of the Hay Festival and a board member of the Tricycle Theatre: a renaissance man, whose debate with Daniel Mendelson should be exceptionally sparky. |
 | Marc Sapersteinis Professor of Jewish History and Homiletics at Leo Baeck College, following five years as Principal of the College. Before relocating to UK in 2006, he taught Jewish history and culture at three American Universities. His primary area of research and publication has been the history of Jewish preaching; his most recent of six books is Jewish Preaching in Times of War: 1800–2001. His own riveting sermons have captured audiences at Congregation Beth Shalom and many other communities in the UK and the US. |
 | Janet Soskicehas a day job as a professor of Theology at Cambridge, but she is at Limmud because of her lovely book, The Sisters of Sinai, a rippingly well-told story of how two middle-aged sisters discovered the Cairo Genizah (that came to Cambridge) and helped discover and get published the Sinai Codex, the most important early text of the Christian Bible. This is a story to make your eyebrows go higher than usual – so come and hear it! |
 | Dan Squiresgrew up in Cambridge. He is now a barrister practising in London specalising in human rights and public law, in particular cases concerning terrorism, torture, police powers, religion and law. He has been involved in a number of leading cases in the Supreme Court including challenges to UN financial sanctions regimes, prison law, faith schooling and the retention of DNA by the police. He has also represented Iraqis pursuing claims in the UK alleging torture and mistreatment by British troops. His session will look at the problem of torture from a legal perspective. |
 | Gary Webberis a barrister and mediator and the very best law lecturer the Cambridge Limmud Team has ever encountered. From the outpost of Bath, Gary is an astute observer of the legal scene in this country, particularly as it affects our community as a whole. He is a past speaker at Limmud Conference on the JFS case. Today he will use his experience of mediating family and commercial disputes to explain how we can change the world! |
 | Naomi Wolfis an author, social critic and political activist, committed to raising awareness of the pervasive inequalities of society. Her international best-seller, The Beauty Myth was called by the New York Times one of the most important books of the twentieth century: it launched a new wave of feminism in the 1990s. Her second best-seller was The End of America: a Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot – and we are all eagerly awaiting her forthcoming work, Vagina: a Cultural History. “Her rapport with people is amazing”, declared the Southern Methodist University after her appearance there. |
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AB Yehoshuais one of the best-known Israeli writers across the world, a maestro of Hebrew prose, and searing narrative, and political fire. It is a great excitement for us to welcome Bulli here for his first trip to Cambridge. He will give one lecture, and have one discussion, led by Nicholas de Lange, undoubtedly the greatest translator of modern Hebrew literature into English.
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 | Raphael Zarumis Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies where he was previously Chief Executive and Head of Faculty. He has a reputation as one of British-Jewry's most appreciated and gifted educators, well-known to Limmudniks across the UK and around the world. His interactive sessions are masterpieces of engagement and learning. Raphael is a graduate of the Mandel Leadership Institute in Israel; has an MA in Adult Education and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Kings College, London. He is the creator of the Torah L'Am crash course and author of Torat Hadracha and The Jampacked Bible. He led the faculty of the Florence Melton Adult Mini School and has taught and presented in Jewish educational institutions and conference the world over. |
