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

10:45am AEST

Creative ways to build memory today: How I rebuilt the Gentilli family story

Sunday June 8, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

This initiative aims at sharing with the audience multiple creative ways to rebuild the memory of Holocaust victims and how I effectively connected with Italian youth, 80 years after the Shoah, recounting the Gentilly family story.

Speakers

Denis Passalent

Born in Udine (Italy) and moved to Venice to start his tertiary education at Cà Foscari University in Linguistics. After attending a Harvard Summer School in Renaissance Art and Interracial Literature, Denis completed his Masters at Université Aix-Marseille in French Literature... Read More →

Sunday June 8, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

History and memory

12:00pm AEST

Listen your way to peace

Sunday June 8, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

Donna has been running listening circles with Jews and Palestinians for decades. Since October 7, she has run them for her community very regularly, being called in to run them for traumatised communities. Listening to each other can provide comfort, greater understandings, and renewed unity.

Speakers

Donna Jacobs Sife

internationally renowned and awarded storyteller, writer, Jewish educator, program director Together for Humanity, peace activist. past columnist for AJN

Sunday June 8, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Society and politics

1:15pm AEST

New trends in food and wine in Israel

Sunday June 8, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

In the last few years, and despite the war in Gaza, Israel has become a powerhouse of food and wine. What is Israeli cuisine? What is happening in the restaurant world in Israel? When it comes to wine, there are more than 300 wineries in Israel and the quality has improved dramatically. There is now a move to more Mediterranean varieties and more white wines.

Speakers

Linda Gradstein

Linda Gradstein is the correspondent for Voice of America which is an international broadcasting network funded by the US government which reaches more than 320 million people around the world in dozens of languages. She is also the Israel correspondent for CBS Radio in the US. In... Read More →

Sunday June 8, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Everything Israel

2:45pm AEST

Fighting for the enemy: Jews who fought for the Nazis

Sunday June 8, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

Some Jews not only survived 'out in the open' both in Nazi Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, but actively thrived. In this session we look at how Jews could live openly under the Nazi hammer, and how - and why - some chose not only to survive, but to actively fight on the side of their Nazi overlords.

Speakers

Jeremy Stowe-Lindner

Jeremy is Principal of Bialik College, a pluralist Jewish school of 1150 children. Jeremy was previously London’s Jewish Community Secondary School’s founding Headteacher. A fellow of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders and an MBA graduate, Jeremy is a history teacher... Read More →

Sunday June 8, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

History and memory

4:00pm AEST

The four sons and their stories

Sunday June 8, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

Join Gabrielle on a journey through Jewish storytelling using multiple haggadot from different times to explore how each generation has built upon the structures of previous generations to create a uniquely Jewish intergenerational, multi sensory educational experience.

Speakers

Gabrielle Shroot

Gabrielle is a long-standing collector of books, ideas and arguments. She has strong opinions about what makes a great Seder, what makes a great story, and how to deliver both to engage the audience and build identity.

Sunday June 8, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Arts and culture

5:15pm AEST

The life and liturgical music of Syrian Jews

Sunday June 8, 2025 5:15pm - 6:15pm AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

Syrian Jews in Brooklyn number 70,000 constituting the largest group of Syrian Jews in the world. This tight knit community defies American narratives of Jewish success. With through financial success they build a stronger more cohesive community with the religious institutions and organizations. This session, based on Kligman’s doctoral research, will highlight the life of Syrian Jews in their traditions and liturgical music. Visual, audio and video examples will show their unique customs and traditions.

Speakers

Mark Kligman

Mark Kligman is the Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He is Professor of Ethnomusicology, Musicology and Humanities. In 2020l he was appointed Director of the Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience.

Sunday June 8, 2025 5:15pm - 6:15pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Arts and culture

10:45am AEST

A region in flux: explaining the changes and challengers in the Middle East

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

RG.04 - Room 11

Israel remains at war. Syria was overthrown. Iran is on the backfoot, but is rushing toward the bomb. Turkey has replaced Iran as Syria’s patron. Qatar continues its influence-buying campaign. Are Islamists on the ascendant or is their influence receding? Where does Israel fit in all of this? Will the Abraham Accords expand? This session will make sense of the recent history of the Middle East, and assist in predicting its future.

Speakers

Bren Carlill

Dr Bren Carlill is the director of special projects at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. He has previously worked at the ZFA, the Departments of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs and Trade, and for a federal politician. His PhD examined the intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Everything Israel

12:00pm AEST

Michael John Davies (Me'ir ben Ya'akov): new information on a notorious Jewish convict

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

RG.04 - Room 11

Michael John Davies ( 1788–1873) was the patriarch of a family of Jewish convicts and scallywags sent out to Australia. Remarkable evidence of his Hebrew and Jewish literacy is evident from different sources that have become available. Court records and press coverage in the UK and the colonies also reveal his pugnacious style as well antisemitism. His life provides tantalising evidence about the life of the Jewish underclass in the Regency and then in the colonies.

Speakers

Larry Stillman

Larry Stillman is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Monash, Faculty of IT. Also has degrees in Assyriology (Hebrew U, Harvard). Active on social justice issues and blogs a lot. Plays the Anglo Concertina, is a bookbinder and collects ancient coins

Monday June 9, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

History and memory

1:15pm AEST

The October 7 2023 progrom was neither new or unexpected: what is unique is how it has affected the Melbourne Jewish community 2

Monday June 9, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm AEST

RG.04 - Room 11

The Holocaust and the Yom Kippur Wars were progroms that had diabolical effects on the Jewish world. The former had the potential to obliterate the Jewish World while the latter threatened to extinguish. But observations show that Jewry has been heavily traumatised by the events of October 7, even though Israel was never under the potential of obliteration. It is important to analyse why this is so!

Speakers

John Zeleznikow

John Zeleznikow is a Professor of Law and Technology who is a pioneer in using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and Law. He has conducted research and written about the4 Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the Holocaust. His parents ran Cafe Scheherazade

Monday June 9, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Society and politics

2:45pm AEST

The effect of the Gaza war on the Middle East

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

RG.04 - Room 11

The Middle East has been changed fundamentally by the war in Gaza and the ascension of President Trump. What are the scenarios for the future of the Iranian nuclear program, US-Israel relations, Israel and the Palestinians, Israel and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Abraham accords? Is there a chance for a new, different Middle East.

Speakers

Linda Gradstein

Monday June 9, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Everything Israel

4:00pm AEST

Golem girls of the 21st century

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

RG.04 - Room 11

What is going on with the resurgence of the Golem legend, and why are so many young people utterly obsessed with it? Shoshana takes you on a deep dive through Golem literature, memes and theory.

Speakers

Shoshana Gottlieb

Shoshana is a writer and Jewish educator from Sydney who makes jokes on the internet. When not thinking of new ways to (lovingly) make fun of Judaism, she's watching romantic comedies. You can find her on Instagram @JewishMemesOnly and Twitter @TheTonightSho. Her mother thinks she... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST
RG.04 - Room 11

Arts and culture