Presenters - B

Organisation: Rechov Sumsum, Mandel Foundation Israel

Yael Bar-Lev has an MSc in Education, is co-manager of 'Patiach', Mandel Leadership Institute, Israel, dealing with various aspects of education, such as educating in a multicultural society in the Israeli context and educating through the media. She is the Content Director of the last two seasons of the Sesame Street media project in Israel.

Sessions:

• 'Mutual Creative Space' - a Space for Multicultural Encounter in Educational Environments
• Behind the Scenes of Jewish-Israeli Parenting
• Israeli-Arab Co-Existence in the Israeli 'Sesame Street' - When Reality and Fantasy Meet Together.
• Sesame Street - Creating an Authentic Street in Israel - What Does It Look Like?

Organisation: World Bank

Aliza Belman Inbal is an international development expert at the World Bank. Prior to joining the Bank, she served as an Israeli diplomat where, among other things, she managed Israel’s development cooperation program in the Middle East. She has also been a speechwriter for Prime Minister Rabin, and a radio news producer.

Sessions:

• Whose Poor Come First? Jewish Ethics in a Modern World

Organisation: Partnership 2000-Jewish Agency/Limmud Galil

Ronen Ben Daniel has served as a senior manager of several high-tech oriented companies and as a lecturer in the Ben-Gurion University in Israel. He has a BSc and an MBA and has for more than 20 years studied and experienced different philosophies related to spiritual and mental aspects of life and Judaism.

Sessions:

• The Biography and Creation of the Ramhal - Truth that Is Beyond Imagination

Miriam Benchetrit is Chief Executive of The Rothschild Foundation Europe. She has worked for the Minerva Centre for Human Rights, Hebrew University and SHATIL: New Israel Fund's Capacity Building Centre for Social Change. She has a BA and MSc in Middle Eastern Politics and Political Theory.

Sessions:

• Dragons Den: So You Think You're an Entrepreneur?
• Philanthropy: Giving to Change the World for Good

Organisation: Tzedek
Website: http://www.tzedek.org.uk

Dan Berelowitz is the new Director of Tzedek, the Jewish development charity working regardless of race and religion with some of the poorest people in the world. With a management degree, Dan previously worked on environmental protection, international development and sport for development. Dan has travelled extensively including volunteering in Africa.

Sessions:

• I'm Interested in Volunteering Abroad...
• Volunteering Abroad: More Harm Than Good?

Organisation: Tibetan Jewish Youth Exchange

Marc Bergen was involved in the Federation of Zionist Youth. Having now retired from the youth movement, he does something far less worthwhile (working in a City law firm). To mark his last summer of freedom before starting work 15 months ago, he travelled in Tibet and India and has since become involved in the Tibetan Jewish Youth Exchange.

Sessions:

• What Could Jews and Tibetans Possibly Have in Common?

Organisation: Jewish Community Centre for London
Website: http://www.myspace.com/jonnyberliner

Jonny Berliner writes and sings songs about all sorts of things in all sorts of ways. Sometimes bluesy, sometimes folksy and sometimes downright stupid but always energetic, thought provoking and entertaining. And he fits well into the Jewish singer-songwriter mould with a big Dylanesque Jewfro on his head.

Sessions:

• Jonny Berliner - Live!

Organisation: Halachic Organ Donor Society
Website: http://www.hods.org

Robby Berman is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (MPA) , Baruch College (MBA), Yeshiva University (BA), Gruss Kollel and Yeshivat Hakotel. Previously a freelance journalist (New York Magazine, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Week), he is founder and director of the Halachic Organ Donor Society.

Sessions:

• Is It Moral to Buy Kidneys from Poor People?
• Organ Donation and Halacha
• When Is a Person Dead? The Brain Death Controversy

Organisation: Holocaust Community Services
Website: http://jcfs.org

David Bier was born in London and works in a programme of the Jewish agencies in Chicago, where he provides support to Holocaust survivors and families, and co-leads a weekly group for survivors. He develops training on the needs of survivors and training to staff and other agencies.

Sessions:

• Listening to Holocaust Survivors (3 of 3)
• What We Should Learn from Holocaust Survivors (1 of 3)
• What We Should Learn from Holocaust Survivors (2 of 3)

Organisation: Limmud South Africa Johannesburg Co-Chair

David Bilchitz is a constitutional lawyer whose book 'Poverty and Fundamental Rights’ has just been published by OUP. He founded JewishOutLook (SA LGBTI Alliance) and is one of the founders of Limmud South Africa (currently Johannesburg co-chair). He's known for his engaging, participative text sessions and for his social activism.

Sessions:

• Building Limmud South Africa: a Unique African Jewish Experience
• Must We Obey G-d Under All Circumstances? a Literary and Philosophical Approach to Shaul and the Amalekites

Organisation: Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking
Website: http://www.theoptimisticjew.com

Tsvi Bisk is an American-Israeli futurist, social researcher and strategy planning consultant. He is Director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking (www.futurist-thinking.co.il) and author of 'The Optimistic Jew' (Maxanna Press, 2007). He has published over 100 articles and essays and is a popular lecturer in both Hebrew and English.

Sessions:

• Futurising Jewish Thinking
• Opening Up Not Shutting Out - Re-conceiving the Notion of Identity
• Reinventing Israel-Diaspora Relations
• The Jewish Energy Project - a Multi-Dimensional/Multi-Purpose Concept of Jewish Activity

Organisation: Aegis Trust & Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre
Website: http://www.holocaustcentre.net

Shoshana Bloom works for the Aegis Trust, an organisation dedicated to the prevention of genocide. The Aegis Trust is based at the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire. Shoshana has been involved with Limmud for a number of years and is so incredibly proud of Kevin for chairing this year's Conference.

Sessions:

• Day Trip to Beth Shalom and Aegis Trust

Rex Bloomstein is a documentary film producer and director. His many films include the themes of human rights, crime and punishment, prison life and Jewish subjects. They have been shown on British television and in other parts of the world. His most recent film was the feature length documentary 'KZ'.

Sessions:

• Humour, Identity and the Holocaust

Organisation: Charities Advisory Trust
Website: http://www.charitiesadvisorytrust.org.uk

Hilary Blume is the Founder/Director of the Charities Advisory Trust; former Lottery Commissioner; Council Member Royal Society of Arts. Pioneer of fundraising techniques, including Card Aid, the Good Gifts Catalogue, the prize-winning Green Hotel in India and most recently Peace Oil, Hilary has raised millions for charity.

Sessions:

• Ethics of Charity Giving; How to Be a Good Giver
• Fund-raising Made Easy
• Philanthropy: Giving to Change the World for Good
• Stitch and Kvetch
• Stitch and Kvetch
• Stitch and Kvetch

Website: http://www.artists.org.il

Eliezer Blumen is the guitarist with Reva L'sheva and a member of the Artists and Musicians for Israel organisation. He has released four solo albums and can be seen playing in clubs around Israel with his original power trio, Yood. Reb Shlomo Carlebach influenced Eliezer's rediscovery of his Jewish identity.

Sessions:

• Eliezer Blumen Jam Session

Organisation: HUC-JIR

Marion Blumenthal is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion and an experienced psychotherapist, is the national chair of Makom and serves on the boards of the American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee, the American Jewish World Service, the Jewish Agency and Synagogue 3000. Among her interests is the application of the insights and wisdom of Judaism to the developmental life cycle.

Sessions:

• How to Raise a Mentsch
• Loss and Grief: Learning from Our Tradition

Organisation: University of California, Berkeley

Daniel Boyarin is the Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture at Berkeley. Consonant with the title of his (self-named) chair, he is primarily interested in the Talmud as a culture and as evidence for a culture - the culture of the Jews in late antiquity in their historical settings.

Sessions:

• The Talmud as a Novel (1 of 3)
• The Talmud as a Novel (2 of 3)
• The Talmud as a Novel (3 of 3)

Renee Bravo is a retired shopkeeper with no professional or academic qualifications. She has spent her life trying to get women interested in the synagogue, and the synagogue interested in women.

Sessions:

• The Case for the Defence

Website: http://www.sonicpusher.com

Jake Break - Jacob Schwarz - is a souled-out independently affiliated producer, whose music bridges Afro Beat, Brazilian jazz and funk rhythms. At the moment, Jake Break is providing the aural landscape for Y-Love to cultivate his ideas. Together they are delighted to bring their thought-provoking, booty-shaking music to Limmud.

Sessions:

• Y-Love - Behind the Rap
• Y-Love in Concert

Organisation: World Zionist Organization

David Breakstone is a veteran Jewish educator who has dedicated his career to the theory and practice of teaching Israel as a central component of Jewish self-understanding. A leading figure of Masorti/Conservative Judaism worldwide, he represents this movement on the Executives of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization.

Sessions:

• A Visit to Altneuland: Lessons for Today
• The Future of Zionism - Two Perspectives
• The Persistence of Vision

Stewart Brookes has a PhD in medieval literature from King's College London. His research interests include biblical adaptation, medieval textualities, and Hebrew manuscript art. In response to public demand, his doctoral thesis on Anglo-Saxon homiletics won't be available in the conference bookshop.

Sessions:

• Becoming the People of the Book: an Introduction to Hebrew Manuscript Art
• So Long, and Thanks for the Fish: Narrativising Jonah's Death Wish

Organisation: UJIA

David Brown is a Youth Leadership Development worker at the UJIA Jewish Life Education Centre, with eight years' experience in communal leadership with Redbridge Jewish Community Centre and Hanoar Hatzioni. He's a passionate educator, mixing Jewish values and education with wider activity and thought surrounding young people. He holds a BA in Youth Studies.

Sessions:

• Children's Rights and Jewish Wrongs?
• How to Be Blue and White and Green All Over

Avrum Burg is a leader, writer, thinker and businessman. In 2004 he published 'God is Back', which addresses some of the most critical issues pertaining to religion and society in Israel and the Middle East. In 2007 he published his critically acclaimed second book 'Winning Hitler'.

Sessions:

• A Conversation Between God and Man
• Avrum Fried's Protest Songs (Niggunim)
• Tell me Text
• The Clash of Civilizations
• The Future of Zionism - Two Perspectives

Organisation: Ha'aretz
Website: http://www.haaretz.com

Bradley Burston is a columnist for Ha'aretz newspaper and Senior Editor of Haaretz.com. As a reporter he covered the Palestinian uprising in Gaza, the Gulf War, and Israeli-Arab peace talks. He is a recipient of the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Mideast Journalism, presented at the United Nations in 2006.

Sessions:

• Jews, News, and the Media in Israel
• Panel Discussion: What Should Israel Learn from Nearly Two Years of Hamas Palestinian Government?
• The Need to Boycott Israel
• What Self-Hating Jews Can Teach Muslims
• Why Are So Many Leftists So Anti-Israel
• Why There Is No Palestine