Limmud Oz Melbourne 2025: Full Schedule

Welcome to the program for Limmud Oz Melbourne 2025!

Join us for an immersive weekend festival of Jewish ideas and culture, with >100 presenters and sessions to choose from.
From Ben-Gurion to bagels, Yentl to yoga, we always have something for everyone. Limmud is an opportunity for you to cultivate a personal Jewish experience and learn from presenters you might never come across otherwise.

Tickets are available here

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9:30am AEST

The world we knew: a Torah of loss and grief

Monday June 9, 2025 9:30am - 10:30am AEST

M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

In the past eighteen months, the world we feel we knew of the past fifty years feels shattered. Besides for the countless deaths, we’ve lost friendships and sureties, anchors and assumptions. In this session we shall explore a range of texts as we consider the ‘Torah of loss and grief’ and look to wisdom from our tradition to navigate the current brokenness.

Speakers

Adina Roth

Adina Roth is Director of Jewish Life at Emanuel school and a clinical psychologist. She received semicha from Yeshivat Maharat and is passionate about b’nei mitzvah and teaching girls to lein. She also loves teaching texts using Midrash, literature, psychoanalysis. Adina’s married... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 9:30am - 10:30am AEST
M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

Text and Philosophy

10:45am AEST

The intimacies of friendship — what have we learned from Shavuot?

Monday June 9, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am AEST

M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

This session will examine very closely the text of Megillat Ruth through the lens of friendship and then explore the concept of friendship as described by the Mishnah, Talmud and the Rambam (Maimonides). I will ask what friendship can achieve and how female friendship is considered by some as a solace, a refuge or even a religious imperative.

Speakers

Lindsay Simmonds

Dr Lindsay Simmonds is a Research Fellow at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS) where she has lectured for over 20 years. In 2024, she completed a three year project at the London School of Economics (LSE), UK, where she led research on Israeli and Palestinian women peaceb... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am AEST
M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

Text and Philosophy

12:00pm AEST

The maid of R’ Judah the Prince: knowledge, power and privilege in the Jewish community

Monday June 9, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST

M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

In a patriarchal world of intellectual elitism, one unnamed working-class woman in the Talmud stands out as a person of unusual intelligence and wit. She was a maid in the house of R’ Judah the Prince, editor of the Mishnah and leader of the generation. This session explores her story through textual fragments, asking critical questions about knowledge, power and privilege in the Jewish community.

Speakers

Sarah Charak

Sarah is a lawyer, history nerd and Jewish educator in Sydney. Her Honours thesis analysed the impact of the white Australia policy on Australian Jewish identity. She has studied at Midreshet Lindenbaum, Nishmat and Drisha and worked in educational and communal roles for Bnei... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST
M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

Text and Philosophy

1:30pm AEST

Humans in the image of God: a transformational idea

Monday June 9, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm AEST

M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

In the very opening narrative of the Torah, we read that human beings are created in the image of God. But what does this mean? In this session we will explore the idea in its literary and historical context, and trace its interpretation through the millennia. We will emerge with a fresh appreciation for the sheer radicalism, subversiveness, and transformational power of this concept.

Speakers

Raphael Dascalu

Raphael Dascalu is a Melbourne-based researcher, translator, and educator. In addition to yeshiva studies, he studied at the Hebrew University (MA) and the University of Chicago (PhD). He is an Adjunct Research Associate at Monash University, and founder of Beit Midrash Oz.

Monday June 9, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm AEST
M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

Text and Philosophy

2:45pm AEST

The Shapira scroll: a modern forgery or the most ancient Biblical manuscript ever discovered?

Monday June 9, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm AEST

M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

The Shapira Scroll is one of the most controversial biblical manuscripts of all time — and it is now lost. But what exactly is it? Many have dismissed it as a worthless forgery from the 1800s, while a few have proposed that it is a 2,000-year-old abridgement of Deuteronomy. Idan will make the case that it actually contains an incredibly early edition of Deuteronomy — one that differs fundamentally from the canonical text.

Speakers

Idan Dorshav Dershowitz

Idan Dorshav Dershowitz joined the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation (ACJC) at Monash University in 2024. He was previously Director of the School of Jewish Theology at the University of Potsdam. He is the author of "The Dismembered Bible" and "The Valediction of Moses."

Monday June 9, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm AEST
M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

Text and Philosophy

4:00pm AEST

Speaking truth to power - how Jewish leaders are encouraged to hold authority to account

Monday June 9, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST

M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

This session will analyse the multiple occasions in which Biblical characters question the actions of political and religious leadership as well as God. In so doing they often shift both the narrative story and innovate Jewish Law. Examples include: Abraham, Elijah, Miriam, the Daughters of Tzlofchad and Esther.

Speakers

Lindsay Simmonds

Monday June 9, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST
M1.05 (Informal) - Room 3

Text and Philosophy