Here is a taster list of speakers to get you in the Limmud mood!

Alan Gibbons 

Alan Gibbons is an award winning children’s author. Winner of the Blue Peter Book Award, ‘The Book I Couldn’t Put Down,’ Alan visits 150 schools a year in the UK and overseas. He lives in Liverpool with his wife and four children. 

Alan Shenkin – Primo Levi & The Periodic Table

Born in Glasgow, and moved to Liverpool in 1990. Now retired Professor of Clinical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool, and Consultant at Royal Liverpool Hospital with a special interest in nutrition.. Hobbies- golf, word games, travel, and malt whisky. 

Avremi Kievman – What Else Is Bugging Rashi

Rabbi Kievman has been the Lubavitch Shliach to Liverpool since 1992. His lively and informative classes have become the mainstay of the Liverpool adult educational scene. With wit and candour, he has been successful in transmitting the wisdom of the ages to many wannabe sages. 

Barend Velleman – Who Needs The Diaspora?

Barend works for Hillel/UJS. A NNL Synagogue Council member and vice-chair of governors at a non-Jewish school, he is a cricket coach and an Arsenal supporter.

Hebrew University graduate and Israeli army officer, he fought in Lebanon and helped to found Peace Now.  With children and grandchildren in Israel he will return there when his 15 year old finishes JFS

Benny Peiser – Global Warning – Is It Good For The Jews

Bernard Jackson – The JFS Case & Chief Rabbi’s Own Goal

After eight years as Queen Victoria Professor of Law at the University of Liverpool and twelve years as Co-Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester (including five years as Director of its Agunah Research Unit), Bernard Jackson is now working part-time at Liverpool Hope University as Professor of Law and Jewish Studies. 

Carola Brassey – Everything’s Coming Up Roses

Clive Lawton – They Mysterious Matter of Shimon Bar Yochai

Clive was one of Limmud’s founders and is now its Senior Consultant. He sits on the Metropolitan Police Authority, is scholar-in-residence at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, a faculty member of the European Centre of Leadership Development and of the London School of Jewish Studies, a magistrate, and Chair of Shap, the national Working Party on Education in World Religions. He works internationally in organizational, educational and community development, broadcasts and has published about a dozen books. 

David Berkley & M Amin – Yerushalayim El Quds

David Hakak – Children at War

David Hakak, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, well-known Modern Hebrew educator, has also degrees in Modern Hebrew, Jewish Studies and drama from both Israel and the UK and he also worked in education and journalism in both countries and in Australia. 

David Simmons – Alephs Through The Looking Glass

Es Rosen & Fiyaz Maghul – Righteous Muslim Persons

ES commenced his career as a PE teacher and sports organiser with an inner city project in Birmingham graduating from Loughborough. Creating the Jewish youth work post before moving back to London as a Principal Youth Officer he had 18 wonderful years in Liverpool as Director of Harold House also acting for the Representative Council and elected chair of the Interfaith Network culminating in Cities award of Capital of Culture. Following spells at the Board of Deputies and Manager of Borehamwoood Shul he is  now Regional Development Manager for Jewish Volunteering Network (JVN)

Fiyaz Mughal OBE, Director of Faith Matters has a BSc (Hons) in Neuroscience from University College London and a Masters in Education. No stranger to Limmud he has over 12 years experience in the community and voluntary sector in positions that have included social policy lobbying, project and general management He was appointed to the Working Group for Communities that was linked to the Extremism Task Force after the 7/7 bombings and consultant to the Commission for Racial Equality and the Enterprise Credit Union.

Hagai M. Segal

Hagai is an award-winning academic, consultant and analyst specialising in terrorism and the Middle-East. Lecturer in Middle-Eastern Politics at New York University in London, Hagai works with and advises national counter-terror and security organisations from the UK to Australia to the USA, and serves on London First's Security & Policing advisory board. He is a regular guest on radio and TV 

John Minnion – Ox on the Roof

Jonathan Hoffman – Zero Tolerance for Anti-Semitism

Jonathan is co-Vice Chair of the ZF, a Deputy and an elected member of the International Division of the Board. Jonathan’s commitment to fighting antisemitism has grown with the problem. In May 2008 he campaigned successfully against the re-election of Ken Livingstone. Most recently he has campaigned against the antisemitic play “Seven Jewish Children”. He writes on his JC Blog, CiFWatch, Harrys Place and Z-Word. 

Jonathan Turner – Bias @ BBC

Jonathan is a barrister specialising in intellectual property and competition law in London. He has written or contributed to a number of books in this field, most recently “Intellectual Property and EU Competition Law” (OUP). He has made a number of complaints about the BBC’s coverage of Israel, two of which were upheld in part by the BBC Trust last year.

Judy Plaut – Biggest Jewish Community

Judy Plaut has been a fieldworker for the Movement for Reform Judaism for the last 9 years. She has been involved with the movement’s Living Judaism Initiative, particularly in Leeds, as well as working with a number of Reform synagogues around the country. She has recently co-facilitated a workshop for those with non-Jewish family members.

Julian Verbov – Laughing Matters

Julian Verbov, Emeritus Professor of Medicine (Dermatology) and formerly Teacher in Philosophy at University of Liverpool. Prolific writer and lecturer, talking to medical, nursing and lay audiences regularly on medical, Biblical/Talmud and other topics. Founding father of British Paediatric Dermatology, and world fingerprint expert. Hobbies include poetry, apes, magic, humour, classical and brass band music, and designing ties. 

Lindsey Taylor Guthartz – Exploring The Shema

Lindsey studied archaeology at Cambridge and the Hebrew University and lived in Israel for 17 years. She lives in Hendon, editing and translating books on Jewish subjects. She is a Teaching Fellow of London School of Jewish Studies, and has just started a PhD at UCL, on the religious lives of Jewish women. 

Marvin Shaw – Kosher Happiness

Michael Swerdlow – From Bima to Broadway Part 2

Nick Evans – Anglo Jewry & The White Slave Trade

Dr Nicholas J. Evans is a Lecturer in Diaspora History at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) and the Department of History at the University of Hull.  He has previously worked on numerous projects examining migration to, through and from Britain, 1830-1960 at the universities of Leicester, Hull, Aberdeen and Cape Town.  His research interests to date have focussed on voluntary and coerced migrations within and from Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 

Norman Jacobs – My Hometown Concentration Camp

Norman Jacobs met Mr Bernard Offen over ten years ago in Krakow, Poland.  It was there that they worked together on writing the latter’s memoirs and reaching out to young Poles and international visitors to discuss the past through a specially founded organisation.  He worked voluntarily as an educator, guide and facilitator for visitors and on several occasions for groups from the UK.  Having completed work on Mr Offen’s book, he returned to England to pursue a career teaching music, but still takes a deep interest in issues pertaining to Poland, a place he revisits frequently.   

Pamela Marre – Tales From A Family Tea Table

Pamela Marre has worked with stories in performance for over 35 years. She has performed in hundreds of educational and entertainment venues, broadcast on many Radio Stations, most recently writing and presenting ‘Words my Mother Taught me’ for ‘Something Understood’ on Radio 4.  She has had stories, poems and articles widely published for both adults and children. She is a fellow in Holocaust Education at the Imperial War Museum and Yad Vashem. 

Ruvi Ziegler – The West Bank Barrier : Myths & Realities

Ruvi Ziegler is a doctoral candidate at Lincoln College, Oxford and tutor in Public International Law. He holds an LLB and a BA (economics) from Haifa University, an LLM from Hebrew University and a BCL and MPhil from Oxford's Law Faculty. Attorney Ziegler served as a legal advising officer in the IDF’S Military Advocate General unit in the West Bank. 

Simon Fishel – IVF : Achievements & Ethical Dilemmas

Simon Fishel is the Managing Director of the CARE Fertility Group – the UK’s largest independent provider of fertility services. His research career began at the University of Cambridge, where he worked for several years with Professor Robert Edwards prior to the birth of the world’s first test tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1978. His pioneering work in the IVF field for more than 3 decades has resulted in many honorary awards from countries such as Japan, Austria, Italy, South Africa and the US, amongst others. In 1992 he founded the world first Postgraduate degree course in IVF and he has advised several international Government committees reviewing policy and legislation on IVF, including advisors to the Vatican. He was awarded a Personal Professional Chair in Human Reproduction and in 2009 was honoured by the Liverpool John Moores University with their highest award of ‘University Fellow’ for “outstanding contribution to science and to humanity”. 

Stan Dadds – The Hijacking Of The Tenach

Stan Dadds and his wife Marian spent 22years and 31years respectively, as Jewish Christians/Messianic Jews. Some twenty years ago they returned to the faith of their fathers. They are active members of Childwall Schul, Liverpool. Stan is an avid amateur historian with special interest in the Second Temple period. 

Sybil Sheridan – Are There Still Jews In Ethiopia?

Sybil Sheridan is one half of the rabbinic partnership that makes up the spiritual leadership at Wimbledon and District Synagogue.   Last year she spent some of her Sabbatical in Gondar, Ethiopia teaching the Hebrew and Jewish studies teachers at the one Jewish school left for the Beta Yisrael – the Ethiopian Jews awaiting Aliya to Israel. 

Wendy Cohen – Israeli Dancing

Since the days of Habonim and later having joined the Shaliach’s class in Liverpool, Wendy has enjoyed learning Israeli dancing (Rikudaim). She continued to pass on her knowledge in order that others may share the joy of many types of Israeli dance. She has also taught in primary and secondary schools, both Jewish and other faiths and presented displays.

Yehoshuah Grunstein – When It’s Going Down The Drain

Yiddish Song Project

From klezmer to jazz, this Scottish based trio have been wowing audiences since 2006 with the raucous joyfulness and melancholy beauty of the Yiddish musical tradition. Over the last four years Stephanie Brickman (vocals), Gavin Marwick (fiddle) and Pete Garnett (accordion) have played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Glasgow, London, Newcastle and now they’re delighted to be back in Liverpool. 

Zippora & Moshe Ne’eman – Judaic papercutting

Zipora Ne’eman a second generation paper cutter from Haifa. Learned  the creates from her father in law Ya’akove Ne’eman. Zipora creates her own original paper cuts and teaches the craft in Israel, America and Europe.  Since Zipora’s retirement from grade teaching in 2001, about 10,000 people studied  paper cutting with her. Zipora presented in Limmud Galille 2007,  2008, 2009, Limmud FSU 2008, 2009, Limmud UK 2008, Limmud Arava 2010. 

Zvi Solomon

Graduating in Archaeology from Cambridge, Zvi later gained a degree in Land Management from Reading and Semicha from Jews’ College London. Previously at Norwich, Potters Bar and Liverpool’s Old Hebrew Congregation, Zvi is now Rabbi at Reading in the Royal County of Berkshire. He and his family miss the City and the Jewish community in Liverpool and are delighted to be at the second Liverpool Limmud, having actively supported the first one