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

Yiddish theatre and American popular music

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

SG.10 - Room 4

This talk will present the influence of Jews in American Theatre in the 1930s and then show how Jewish topics are part of Broadway from Fiddler on the Roof to Falsettos. I will show a three-step process: first, Jews created musical with utopian ideals to express their desire to be American Jews, without Jewish content; second, showcasing Jewish life in that despite the challenges Jewish tradition remains; third, American Jewish life is full of challenges

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 10:45am - 11:45am AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Arts and culture

12:00pm AEST

Medicine, Nazism and the Holocaust

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

SG.10 - Room 4

The intimate relationship between medical practitioners and the development of the inhumane policies of Nazi Germany is generally poorly understood. But topic should be taught to student health practitioners during medical ethics units to product history-informed morally resistant practitioners.

Speakers

Jack Green

Jack Green is a dermatologist who is the president of the Australasian Jewish Medical Federation(Vic.). This is the organisation connecting and advocating for Jewish health practitioners and has been busy in context of fighting antisemitism in healthcare in Australia since October... Read More →

Sunday June 8, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

History and memory

1:30pm AEST

Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan - Torah, Kabbalah, the Holocaust, Sholem Aleichem: themes and connections

Sunday June 8, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm AEST

SG.10 - Room 4

Many words and lyrics by Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan are drawn from Jewish religious and Jewish historical sources, in particular, the Holocaust and the Tanach. By examining selective words and lyrics, plus relevant quotes from both ‘artists’ and analysts of their work, we will see how their Jewish backgrounds contributed essential elements to some of their most famous works. We will hear some Yiddish from Leonard and a bit of Hebrew from Bob.

Speakers

Myer Bloom

Myer Bloom is a former teacher, university tutor and interviewer of Holocaust survivors. He has published two books, occasional short articles and has delivered papers on Jewish themes at four academic conferences. His Jewish research includes visits to Jewish historic sites in Eastern... Read More →

Sunday June 8, 2025 1:30pm - 3:30pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Arts and culture

5:15pm AEST

Covering the war: challenges and opportunities

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

SG.10 - Room 4

Linda has been a journalist for three decades but covering the Gaza war has been different than any previous conflict. Journalists were not able to enter Gaza which made coverage difficult. Also, the home front was the same as the war front with missiles landing all over Israel. The fact that hundreds of Israelis were being held hostage in Gaza had never happened before.

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 5:15pm - 6:15pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Everything Israel

10:45am AEST

Some thoughts on the writing of “Everything Goes to The Dogs”: the ethics of fiction and the telling of tales

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

SG.10 - Room 4

Using the pen name Billy Albert I wrote a satire titled “Everything Goes to The Dogs.” In the book I satirised a once rich South African Jewish family where to evade the prevailing currency regulations their wealth was illegally transferred to a Swiss bank. But once there one member of the family betrayed the others by running off with everything. And the others were powerless as that Swiss account was illegal. But vengeance trumps all.

Speakers

Michael Schwartz

I am a retired academic who was the longtime editor of a leading UK ethics journal. I was also an AAPAE President. I was a prolific ethics researcher. Now, under the pen name Billy Albert, my outrageous satire “Everything Goes to The Dogs,” researches ethics at a whole new le... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 10:45am - 11:45am AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Modern Jewish world

12:00pm AEST

Can the centre hold?

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

SG.10 - Room 4

Increasingly polarised political discourse means nuanced and moderate positions are under attack from both ends. The Jewish world faces increasingly strident division both in Israel and in diaspora communities. Join a discussion on the impacts of polarisation and how the centre is holding, through perspectives from media, politics and Jewish community engagement and activism.

Speakers

Josh Burns

Josh Burns is an Australian politician. Representing the Australian Labor Party, he was elected as the member for the division of Macnamara in Melbourne at the 2019 Australian federal election. He was re-elected in 2022 and 2025.

Deborah Stone

Deborah Stone is Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Independent. She is a former Editor of ArtsHub and the Australian Jewish News and has worked as a reporter and feature writer on The Age, The Sunday Age and The Australian.

Naomi Levin

Naomi Levin is Chief Executive Officer at the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV). She has previously held a number of roles in Jewish organisations in Australia, including Senior Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and Deputy Editor at... Read More →

Mandi Katz

Mandi Katz is a Melbourne-based governance professional in the financial services industry by day, and a Jewish community activist the rest of the time

Monday June 9, 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Society and politics

1:30pm AEST

The last Jew in Labor

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

SG.10 - Room 4

For decades, Australian Jews found a natural home in Labor, united by progressive ideals. Today, that bond is shattered, replaced by selective solidarity that demonises Israel and sidelines Jewish voices. Antisemitism, disguised as anti-Zionism, thrives globally—from Corbyn’s UK to America’s campuses—echoed here by Greens activism and Labor silence. Unless Labor confronts this dangerous drift, we risk arriving at a tragic reality: the last Jew in Labor, left isolated and unwanted.

Speakers

Adam Slonim

Adjunct Fellow, Sir Zelman Cowen Centre, Victoria University, AustraliaFounder & Director, Blended Learning GroupDirector, Vestia.AIANZ partner, Celemi InternationalBoard Member, John Curtin Research CentreCo-Convenor, Australia-Israel Labor DialogueAuthor of Artificial Intelligence... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Society and politics

2:45pm AEST

The 'next step' on the long road to peace in Israel-Palestine

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

SG.10 - Room 4

“The situation is hopeless. We must TAKE THE NEXT STEP.” Pablo Casals. The Israel-Palestine conflict looks hopeless. There are ongoing calls for diplomacy to produce a two state solution. But diplomacy cannot deliver when human hearts are so hardened. The next step, that any individual can take, is to embrace a well thought out virtue ethic. Then their own heart can be a positive example. I present such an ethic, based on Abrahamic wisdom.

Speakers

David Cohan

David is a humanistic/progressive Jew. Member of TBI Progressive Synagogue since 2006. Treasures the Tanach as great literature and a source of wisdom, but of wholly human origin. Retired engineer. Slowly working on a book on Ethics, based mainly on wisdom from the Abrahamic text... Read More →

Monday June 9, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Everything Israel

4:00pm AEST

When are Jewish texts not relevant?

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

SG.10 - Room 4

We often mine Jewish texts for meaning and relevance. But when studying Jewish texts about specific topics, we sometimes don't ask ourselves the broader question of whether these texts actually apply in our given context. Let's look at some examples and ask the broader questions together!

Speakers

Shamir Caplan

Shamir serves as Rabbi at Mount Scopus Memorial College, as well as Rabbi of Beit Aharon Congregation on Mayfield Street, East St Kilda. He has a Masters in Family Therapy, and is particularly interested in interfaith dialogue. He is married and has three children.

Monday June 9, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm AEST
SG.10 - Room 4

Text and Philosophy