Limmud Oz Melbourne 2025

Join storyteller, humorist and Neuro Diverse advocate Tal Spinrad as we sprint through the forest of Jewish Humor in search of that most elusive of creatures….truth. Explore how for nearly 4,000 years we Jews have been bending reality until it looks back upon itself revealing hidden truths. Language and subject warnings….not for the faint of heart.

The discovery of the Cairo Genizah has given us priceless (often hilarious) insights into how generations of Jewish people lived throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Let's explore what the Genizah is, why it's so cool, and some of the funnier excerpts found within it.

From the beginning of colonisation, Anglo-Australian Jews aligned themselves with ‘white Australia’. But as persecuted Jews began to flee Russia for new shores in the 1880s, Jewish racial desirability came into question. This session will explore the ambivalent and conditional positioning of Jews in the white/non-white dichotomy of 19th and 20th century Australia, and (tentatively!) draw some conclusions about Jewish belonging in Australia today.

Learn some Klezmer repertoire, style and tradition in a warm and inclusive workshop environment. You will learn material and concepts aurally, by singing along with the founders of the Melbourne Klezmer School, Amy Zakar Banner and Adam Starr. Instruments welcome, but not required!

We will explore how the Zionist idea has fared in the United States over the past century. Despite common misconceptions, it has actually had a varied and often controversial history. Ultimately, the key to understanding its importance falls on its religious meaning far more than any purely political idea, and particularly on its connection to the idea of the "state" rather than any Zionist ideology per se, hence the rising popularity of the term "Israelism".

Kol Nidrei is one of the most well-known Jewish prayers, but it has also been one of the most frequently banned and censored. Beloved by the Jewish community as a whole, rabbis have historically fretted about its project of cancelling people’s oaths and obligations. This presentation explores a millennium’s worth of Jewish arguments about the prayer and its future.