Cambridge Limmud
Nov. 5th, 2018 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOsos, Liv and I went to the one-day Jewish conference, this year held at hills road. It was really interesting, I should maybe try to go to some conferences related to things I actually know about.
This year seemed unsurprisingly well organised, there was little difficulty finding lunch, the rooms were the right size for the talks, etc.
Session 1: Daniel Boyarin
Unsurprisingly, Boyarin unearthed some Talmud story most people haven't heard of and extrapolated it into a big chunk of scholarship upending interpretation of... various things. This one probably needs its own post.
Session 2: Israel's Foreign Policy
After a very academic first session, I braved a potentially depressing talk about Israel's government's rightward shift, and friendship with unsavoury right-wing governments elsewhere.
Session 3: When is a joke not a joke
By an academic who'd written several books about jokes, but darker than I thought at first. I was expecting black humour (although it included one of the very darkest jokes I think I've heard), but in fact the specific topic was the alt-right's adoption of humour as a confusion/deniability tactic. Which was very interesting, although also quite depressing.
Session 4: Writing the other
Two authors discussing their novels, and the ways they were and weren't recognisably Jewish even when they hadn't planned/expected that. Managed to go 59 minutes without mentioning Hitler.
Session 5: break
There wasn't anything I was specifically interested in this session, so I took a little walk from the college, and found the old site of the Rattle and Kett stoneworks, now decorated by public art and the culinary school experimental cafe.
Session 6: Jonathan Romain, confessions of a Rabbi
This was really interesting and less heavy than most of the middle of the day. He talked about specific (anonymised) moral dilemmas he'd encountered during his career, mostly about personal problems of the congregation, should an estranged father be allowed to gatecrash his daughter's wedding? Someone had been stealing but maybe that didn't make a difference, what should they do now? Some about infidelity and not. And invited the audience to share what they thought the right decisions were, or what issues they thought needed to be considered, before describing what he'd done (without pretending he was right).
It touched on jewish law, and british law, but unlike a lot of problems they were mostly ones where anyone could have an opinion.
Amongst many other achievements, he's apparently written an entire book about these examples (I'm curious about several, including the virgin birth one). He was notably exceptional at involving an audience without letting anyone steal the microphone.
This year seemed unsurprisingly well organised, there was little difficulty finding lunch, the rooms were the right size for the talks, etc.
Session 1: Daniel Boyarin
Unsurprisingly, Boyarin unearthed some Talmud story most people haven't heard of and extrapolated it into a big chunk of scholarship upending interpretation of... various things. This one probably needs its own post.
Session 2: Israel's Foreign Policy
After a very academic first session, I braved a potentially depressing talk about Israel's government's rightward shift, and friendship with unsavoury right-wing governments elsewhere.
Session 3: When is a joke not a joke
By an academic who'd written several books about jokes, but darker than I thought at first. I was expecting black humour (although it included one of the very darkest jokes I think I've heard), but in fact the specific topic was the alt-right's adoption of humour as a confusion/deniability tactic. Which was very interesting, although also quite depressing.
Session 4: Writing the other
Two authors discussing their novels, and the ways they were and weren't recognisably Jewish even when they hadn't planned/expected that. Managed to go 59 minutes without mentioning Hitler.
Session 5: break
There wasn't anything I was specifically interested in this session, so I took a little walk from the college, and found the old site of the Rattle and Kett stoneworks, now decorated by public art and the culinary school experimental cafe.
Session 6: Jonathan Romain, confessions of a Rabbi
This was really interesting and less heavy than most of the middle of the day. He talked about specific (anonymised) moral dilemmas he'd encountered during his career, mostly about personal problems of the congregation, should an estranged father be allowed to gatecrash his daughter's wedding? Someone had been stealing but maybe that didn't make a difference, what should they do now? Some about infidelity and not. And invited the audience to share what they thought the right decisions were, or what issues they thought needed to be considered, before describing what he'd done (without pretending he was right).
It touched on jewish law, and british law, but unlike a lot of problems they were mostly ones where anyone could have an opinion.
Amongst many other achievements, he's apparently written an entire book about these examples (I'm curious about several, including the virgin birth one). He was notably exceptional at involving an audience without letting anyone steal the microphone.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-05 02:15 pm (UTC)