After two years of lockdown seclusion and a retreat to virtual platforms, the shadow of Covid seemed far away as the Limmud Festival returned to Birmingham in person with barely a mask in sight.

More than 1400 people converged over the course of five days to celebrate a sense of togetherness, exploring the highways and byways of Jewish life and culture in a programme of 600 sessions.

While organisers had planned for lower numbers this year, they still had to take out rooms in a second hotel late in the day to accommodate bookings.

Rabba Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz from London, who has attended every festival since 1998 and is writing a history of Limmud, said the volunteer team, smaller than usual, that organised it had “performed absolute miracles. I was doubtful it was going to work - but they have done it. They have hit all the right notes.”

When planning for the event began earlier in the year amid uncertainty about the impact of the pandemic, she said she had been “worried because of the impossible prediction of who and how many would come. It was an enormous gamble - and it’s paid off.”

John Dunston, a seasoned Limmud-goer from Oxford, said, “It’s great to be with the buzz”.

Although the blizzards in North America forced one or two presenters to remain at home and stream their sessions instead, the airport and transport strikes here did not interfere with the event.

Chlo Spinks

Multi-instrumentalist and music journalist Chlo Spinks presenting a session

While sessions covered the aftermath of the Israeli elections, divisions among American Jewry and, inevitably, antisemitism, there were fewer on current affairs and politics than had been the case in recent years - with more emphasis on the arts and Jewish text study.

Ezra Margulies, who was in charge of the programme, said, “We want to stress things that bring people together rather than set them apart , There is more [focus] on educating rather than debating.”

Havdalah at Limmud

Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, scholar in residence for trans and queer Jewish studies at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York, and Dr Shira Solomons, community director of the Jewish Community of Berkshire (photo: Jonathan Hunter)

New arrivals picked up the familiar lanyards sporting just their names but without hierarchical titles such as “rabbi” or “professor’. But reflecting new trends, Limmud also offered optional badges with a preferred choice of pronoun - the non-binary “they/theirs” as well as “he/him” and “she/hers”. The late-night burger stall, that had previously catered for carnivores, went vegan this year.

Emphasising the key value of social responsibility in one of his two addresses, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis explained it stemmed from the “most important” verse in the Torah as cited by the talmudic sage Ben Azzai: the verse in Genesis stating all human beings were created in the image of God.

Jews could fulfil the Torah’s expectations only if they were “totally committed to every single person on earth,” he said.

It was a “Torah imperative” to ensure we look after all “to the best of our ability”.

His Ben Azzai scheme to encourage responsibility among young Jews, named in reference the sage, was launched after he and his wife Valerie visited India eight years ago.

Two of its 60 graduates, Dan Amroussi and Asher Levy, both former JFS students and respectively a trainee solicitor and trainee accountant, spoke of the impact of a trip to Ghana with the Ben Azzai programme.

When the outbreak of Covid thwarted plans to talk about their experiences in schools and synagogues, they came up with another plan to spread awareness about the challenges of the developing world: a competition for secondary school children to devise sustainable projects called YSE (Young Social Entrepeneurs).

Limmud once again offered a place to cross the usual denominational boundaries. Andrea Kelmanson, a former chief of operations for the Board of Deputies, who belongs to a North London Reform synagogue, went to a talk on the theology of chosenness given by Sephardi head Rabbi Joseph Dweck. “He’s always good,” she said.

And while one could dip into kabbalistic cosmology or historic Jewish dialects, there were some practical activities too: babka-making, pickling and - a popular choice - mushroom picking, even if the grounds around the National Exhibition Centre were not the most fertile for foragers.

In the marquee where a thousand Chanukah candles blazed, a rustic-looking succah stood made of bamboo and sacking, erected by Jonathan Samuel, based on a model developed by his father, former Jewish Museum director Edgar Samuel.

succah at Limmud

Succah in the Chanukah tent - and its builder, Jonathan Samuel

By 9 o’clock on Sunday, the last night of Chanukah, the Limmud house band was belting out rock n roll classics to a packed bar. But in a quieter room, Netanel Zalevsky, of Kehilot Sharot - an Israeli group which is bringing songs drawn from the different traditions of the Jewish world to wider audiences - was teaching a Chasidic niggun, a melody originally used to achieve devekut, communion with the Divine.

music

Members of Limmud House Band supporting singer of Judeo-Arabic music Laura Elkeslassy

At midnight, some people were drifting into dreamy contemplation to the “psychedelic sounds” of Nathan Finkel’s electric guitar and keyboards.

A festive mood was evident at the traditional egalitarian minyan the next morning, which managed to sing one of the Hallel psalms for Chanukah to the sound of Jingle Bells.