Saturday 26 December 2009

Limmud: where Jews go at Christmas time...

Yay! It's Limmud tomorrow. A 2000 person conference on all things Jewish, it's Anglo-Jewry's premier educational event, and I'm looking forward to it.

Sadly Limmud's cross-communal ethos and open lectern policy is too much for some Jews. (the Chief Rabbi appears to be one of them). By allowing all types of Jews to come and teach, they argue, Limmud in practise excludes very Orthodox Jews like them. Why? Well as one limmud-rejecting friend explained to me, it would be intellectually dishonest for him to attend because rabbis whose authority he doesn't recognize are invited to teach.

Sound like intellectual cowardice to you? It does to me. Since when did you need to accept somebody's authority to be able to listen and (who knows?) maybe even learn from them?

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